This haunting jungle of a novel has been hailed as a "masterpiece" by Luis Bunuel and "one of the great novels not only of Spanish America but of our time" by Carlos Fuentes. It recounts the story of the last member of the aristocratic Azcoitia family, a monstrous mutation who is protected from the knowledge of his deformity by being surrounded by other freaks. A triumph of imaginative, visionary writing. Its luxuriance, fecundity, horror, and energy will not soon fade from the reader's mind.