El corazón de la fiesta

After inheriting a huge apartment in the center of Barcelona (a "real estate indecency"), Clara Montsalvatges decides to convert it into a space where she can take care of friends who are going through a rough patch, be it professional, love or health. Summer arrives, the space is emptied and a couple of mysterious neighbors set up on the front floor who will soon indulge in unpleasant shouting matches. A little out of fear of violence and a little out of play, Clara summons her old boyfriend (who she still doubts if he is the man of her life or a manifest calamity) to help her "resolve" the situation while they decide what to do. with each other. After a night of laughter interrupted by blows and screams, Clara will end up paving the floor across the street and will become (driven by curiosity and against her common sense) her neighbor's confidante, who will drag her into a whirlwind of experiences where modest origins mingle with the promise of luxury, and where contempt and mistrust compete with the fierce joy of ambitions, all traversed by the blessing and nightmare of money: welcome to the world of Violeta Mancebo, the daughter-in-law of the King of Catalonia. Designed as a luminous romantic comedy that soon reveals its caustic interior, The Heart of the Party draws from the intimate story of two couples the cracks of a society stressed by community feelings and class differences, the explosive cocktail that they form by mixing the nation and money. Propelled by a vibrant and shameless prose, and by a gaze as steely as it is lucid, Gonzalo Torné has written, with El corazón de la fiesta, his most audacious novel, and one of the most ambitious and pertinent of recent times.