It is the summer of 1936, in the early months of the civil war that engulfed Spain. In a prison in the city of Santiago de Compostela, an artist sketches the Portico de la Gloria. He uses a carpenter's pencil. He replaces the faces of the prophets and elders with those of his Republican inmates.

A masterpieceofunusualbeautyby one of Europe's greatest living writersa brilliant evocation of the Spanish Civil WarOn August 19, 1936 Hercules the boxer stands on the quayside at Coruna and watches Fascist soldiers piling up books and setting them alight. With this moment a young, carefree group of friends are transformed into a broken generation. Out of this incident during the early months of Spain's tragic civil war, Manuel Rivas weaves a colorful tapestry of stories and unforgettable characters to create a panorama of 20th-century Spanish historyfor it is not only the lives of Hercules...

Manuel Rivas delivers a literary masterpiece about three young friends growing up in a community which is bound by a conspiracy of silence.
Fins and Brinco are best friends, and they both adore the wild and beautiful Leda. The three young friends spend their days exploring the dunes and picking through the treasures that the sea washes on to the shores of Galicia. One day, as they are playing in the abandoned school on the edge of the village, they come across treasure of another kind: a huge cache of whisky hidden under a sheet. But before they can exploit their discovery a shot rings...