Last Dream

Susan Midalia's Review 

Spanish movie director Pedro Almodóvar is one of those rare artists who’ve achieved both mainstream success - Oscars, BAFTAs, Golden Globes - and a global cult following. Coming after decades of the moral and political repression of the fascist Franco regime, his films insist - typically in a hyperbolic fashion that combines elements of the gothic, satire, pastiche and dark comedy - on the right of individuals to forge their own freedoms and satisfy their desires. As a director and script writer, Almodóvar is also centrally concerned with expressions of the feminine: women as mothers, sisters, friends, as sexually ambiguous bodies.

As a fan of his movies, I have been eagerly anticipating Almodóvar’s debut collection of short stories, The Last Dream (translated from the Spanish by Frank Wynne), and written from the 1960s to the present day. This morally audacious, formally inventive, tender and witty collection is well worth the wait. There’s a delightfully humorous story about a queer vampire who tempts the head monk, and a much darker story about a stranger seeking revenge after years of abuse by the Catholic clergy. There’s the pathos of death of a mother, and metatextual stories about the relationship between art and reality. The Last Dream blends the fantastical and the intimate, including stories that draw on Almodóvar’s childhood being raised by strong women, and the complex pleasures of life as a gay man.

The collection is signature Almodóvar: whether poignant or lurid, melodramatic or grounded in real life, you will find much to enjoy and admire in these stories.

Publisher's Review 

A wildly inventive, intimate and mischievous story collection from legendary film director Pedro Almodovar.

The Last Dream brings together for the first time twelve unpublished stories from Almodovar's personal archive, written between the late sixties and the present day. Both a tantalising glimpse into Almodovar's creative mind and a masterclass in how to tell a story, this intimate and mischievous collection reflects Almodovar's obsessions and many of the themes of his cinematic work, spanning genres from autofiction to comedy, parody, pastiche and gothic. The title story, 'The Last Dream', is a beautiful chronicle of the death of Almodovar's mother, and other stories include- a love story between Jesus and Barabbas; a cult film director out in search of painkillers on a bank holiday weekend; the primary version of the film Bad Education; and a gothic tale of a repentant vampire among monks.

In his introduction, Almodovar writes- 'I've been asked to write my autobiography more than once, and I've always refused; it's also been suggested that I let someone else write my biography, but I have always felt somewhat resistant to the idea of a book entirely about me as an individual. I've never kept a diary, and whenever I've tried, I've never made it to page two; in a sense, then, this book represents something of a paradox. It might be best described as a fragmentary autobiography, incomplete and a little cryptic.'

A celebration of the relationship between life and art, fiction and reality from an artist unafraid to write about our most intimate moments, these stories explore desire, mortality, loneliness and the pain and glory of artistic creation, laced with playful humour and a deep love of literature and culture.

Translated by Frank Wynn.