4 of 1001 Books: Javier Marias' Your Face Tomorrow

Javier Marias is one of the most critically acclaimed writers still living, and in his work featured on the 1001 list he has a series that titled, Your Face Tomorrow, that really takes all three novels to fully grasp considering it reads as one work divided into three. The first volume, Fever and Spear, the second, Dance and Dream, and the final called, Poison, Shadow and Farewell, all come together to piece together this epic tale of a guy called Deza, and the interactions he has with the humans around him.

The volumes come together to piece together prominent people, and happenings in Deza's life. We begin by becoming familiar with his acquaintences, Wheeler, and Tupra. Tupra is a bit of a sketchy guy who has no problem killing if he must. Wheeler is retired from the group of psychic spies, but seems to be a father figure to Deza. In the second we become more familiar Perez Nuiz, a fellow member of the group, and one of the only females. Deza begins to encounter the darker side of Tupra as he works with him among people at a night club. In the final, and most memorable novel of the three, we finally see the bond up close of Deza and his wife Luisa, as he deals with a man who he believes is threatening her life, and suffers several losses in his life, and discovers the life of Wheeler, that he has been unwilling to share so far.


Fever and Spear gets off to a slow start, but try to think of the book as one whole book, and it seems to help a long. The first essentially gets us acquainted with the characters and a little curious about them. In the second novel we pick up a bit once arriving at the club, and seeing the terrible things that Tupra is capable of. This also brings to light a significant change in Deza it seems that really begins to shape in the final novel. The way his character builds is what is so intriguing. Then arriving at the final novel you get a lot of great stuff. You finally feel emotion from the writing, and the story is naturally pushing you forward to read more of it because you want to. Luisa is by far one of the more interesting aspects to Deza, and to see what he will do for her to protect her just really makes the novel worthy of a read.

Marias seems to follow a style of writing that reminds you of some prior greats like William Faulkner or James Joyce. The sentences are long, and the words really pop on the page. The thing that gets old is how many times the characters space out away from the story itself into pandering thoughts on life, and love. They go on and on till you've lost the point of where you're getting at times. The thing that works about the final book is that those moments are cut back on, and you get a whole lot more of a story.

Your Face Tomorrow may be discouraging with the first book as far as inspiring you to read it all, but by the time you get to the third you see why it is a great book. The characters get a bit lost in thought at times, but when the story takes hold it is really strong. You see a lot of interwoven things set up in the prior books finally grounded in the third, and some things you had even forgotten.

Rating 3 of 5.

“We live, I suppose, in the unconfessed hope that the rules will at some point be broken, along with the normal course of things and custom and history, and that this will happen to us, that we will experience it, that we — that is, I alone — will be the ones to see it. We always aspire, I suppose, to being the chosen ones, and it is unlikely otherwise that we would be prepared to live out the entire course of an entire life, which, however short or long, gradually gets the better of us.” 
― Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow, Vol. 1: Fever and Spear