Out in the Open

The most acclaimed debut in Spanish fiction of the 2010s. Carrasco built an Iberian western: parched plain, boy on the run, old goatherd, relentless lawman. The prose is as spare and precise as the landscape, making no concessions to the reader's comfort. The comparisons with McCarthy are not overblown. The pace can frustrate those seeking constant action, but the atmosphere has a literary density that is rarely achieved. A first novel that arrived with the assurance of a mature writer.