The House of the Spirits

Isabel Allende's first novel, The House of the Spirits, tells the saga of a powerful family of Latin American landowners.

The despotic patriarch Esteban Trueba has built a private empire with an iron fist that begins to falter with the passage of time and an explosive social environment. Finally, the patriarch's personal decadence will drag the Truebas into a painful disintegration. Trapped in dramatic family relationships, the characters of this powerful novel embody the social and spiritual tensions of an era that spans much of the 20th century.

With impeccable narrative pulse and great historical lucidity, Isabel Allende has created a fresco in which the everyday coexists with the marvelous, love with revolution, and personal ideals with harsh political reality.

Critics have said:
"A unique achievement, at once a personal testimony and a possible allegory of the past, present, and future of Latin America."
The New York Times Book Review

"A strong and absorbing chronicle of a Chilean family, with opulent details and a mystical background... A refined combination of settings."
Kirkus Review

"There are very few journeys more exciting than those made in the imagination of a brilliant novelist. That experience is available in Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits..."
Cosmopolitan

"Allende's writing is so creative, entertaining, and compelling that in the process of creating a stimulating political novel she has also created a vivid and captivating work of art. Her characters are fascinatingly detailed and human."
People

"A seductive, sometimes magical tale... In its tumultuous history of rebellion and love across three generations, it is an allegory in which any family should be able to recognize a bit of themselves."
The Wall Street Journal

"Absolutely stunning. In The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende has shown us the relationship between past and present, family and nation, city and country, spiritual and political values."
San Francisco Chronicle