"The Family of Pascual Duarte" is the story of Pascual Duarte--a Spanish
peasant born into a brutal world of poverty, hatred, and depravity--as
told from his prison cell, where he awaits execution for the murders
he's committed throughout his lifetime. Despite his savage and cruel
impulses, Pascual retains a childlike sense of the world and a groping
desire to understand the blows of fate that led him down his bloody
path.
Originally published in the same year as Camus's "The Stranger"--to
which it has been compared--"The Family of Pascual Duarte" is closer in
tone to the works of Curzio Malaparte and Louis-Ferdinand C?line.