The Age of Disenchantments: The Epic Story of Spain's Most Notorious Literary Family and the Long Shadow of the Spanish Civil War

by Aaron Shulman

A gripping narrative history of Spain’s most brilliant and troubled literary family—a tale about the making of art, myth, and legacy—set against the upheaval of the Spanish Civil War and beyond In this absorbing and atmospheric historical narrative, journalist Aaron Shulman takes us deeply into the circumstances surrounding the Spanish Civil War through the lives, loves, and poetry of the Paneros, Spain’s most compelling and eccentric family, whose lives intersected memorably with many of the most storied figures in the art, literature, and politics of the time—from Neruda to Salvador Dalí, from Ava Gardner to Pablo Picasso to Roberto Bolaño. Weaving memoir with cultural history and biography, and brought together with vivid storytelling and striking images, The Age of Disenchantments sheds new light on the romance and intellectual ferment of the era while revealing the profound and enduring devastation of the war, the Franco dictatorship, and the country’s transition to democracy. A searing tale of love and hatred, art and ambition, and freedom and oppression, The Age of Disenchantments is a chronicle of a family who modeled their lives (and deaths) on the works of art that most inspired and obsessed them and who, in turn, profoundly affected the culture and society around them.  

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Spain, Audiobook, Historical, Politics

496 pages, Hardcover

First published March 5, 2019

About the author

Aaron Shulman is the author of the forthcoming non-fiction historical narrative The Age of Disenchantments: The Epic Story of Spain’s Most Notorious Literary Family and the Long Shadow of the Spanish Civil War (Ecco/HarperCollins, March 2019). After growing up in Michigan, Aaron attended Johns Hopkins as an undergrad and then the University of Montana, where he received his MFA in creative writing. A former Fulbright scholar, his work has appeared in The Believer, The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, Hazlitt, El País, The American Scholar, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among many other places. He is the co-owner of Splash Literary, a book-coaching agency that works with authors, agents, and publishers to make sure important stories and ideas find hungry readers. He lives with his family in Barcelona, Spain.

Reviews

[Peter Turnbull · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1972-73, my junior year in college, I lived with the Panero family (the subject of this book) in Madrid during a six-month study abroad period. Franco was still living. Leopoldo Panero, the patriarch of the family, had been dead 11 years. I knew that he had been a well-known poet, but nothing else. His widow, Felicidad, was a very elegant, well-spoken, aristocratic woman with a mind of her own, and talent, but had a troubled life. I sensed she had "Republican" sympathies and didn't think much of the Francoists/"Nationalists." Leopoldo had been in various posts in the Spanish government--roles that mainly had him promoting Spanish culture. When I started reading some of his work, I was shocked to discover that he was basically an apologist for Franco. I began wondering, "How could this elegant, cultured, intelligent woman possiblly have been married to a Francoist?"

One did not ask questions like this out loud in Spain at that time with Franco still in command. But I always wondered about it. Years later I learned that Leopoldo became a fascist simply to survive--he was imprisoned and was likely headed for execution, but was allowed to join with the Falange after his mother intervened with Franco's wife (whom the mother knew personally). Difficult circumstances, but not a tough choice.

There were three sons: the two younger ones, Leopoldo Maria and Michi, were around frequently at the their mother's apartment. They were a little bit older than me, but still in their mid-20s. Leopoldo Maria was very, very odd--I found out a little from his mother: he had been imprisoned for drugs. I learned later that it was a lot worse than this-he had been imprisoned for political protests and had been tortured. I distinctly remember knocking on his door one evening to talk to him--he was the king of cool but would jump three feet in the air when someone knocked (he apparently had been forcibly removed by police in he middle of the night and lived in fear of a repeat). He would go on to write brilliant poetry from an insane asylum in the Canary Islands where he lived most of his life.

Shulman was inspired to write the book while living in Spain 10-12 years ago when he saw the movie "El Desencanto." This movie, made in 1975, was a documentary about the Panero family--the central event was the unveiling of a statue of Leopoldo (the father) in his hometown of Astorga. The unveiling was a formal affair, with children dancing, speeches, etc. The movie, however, is mainly conversations and interviews with Felicidad, Juan Luis (the oldest son), Michi, and, finally, Leopoldo Maria. Let's just say it's apparent Felicidad was not happy with her late husband and that there was an enormous amount of conflict among the sons and between the mother and each son. They all had severe issues with the father Leopoldo and did not hesitate to say so. All of this in the context of unveiling a statue of him! The movie was considered scandalous in Spain, but made the family famous in that country.

Why am I saying all of this in a book review? Well, I read the book as almost an allegory on the destructive power of fascism on a family and on creativity. I read a WSJ review of the book--the reviewer didn't seem to get this at all. Each family member I think felt a great deal of shame and guilt, albeit mixed with some pride, about their father and the life he lead. The two older sons both attempted suicide. Michi, the youngest, became a womanizing man-about-town in Madrid and died of cancer at 52. The older brothers died about six years ago. No children from any of them. So, the end of the line.

So, yes, a "Long Shadow," indeed. A cautionary tale for these times for us now in the US? "Nationalism" vs. "liberalism?" I think our institutions are strong enough to keep us from descending into an autocracy, but just in case anyone needs to be reminded that fascism is evil, well . . . "The Age of Disenchantments" is one more example. Incredibly well-researched, incredibly well-written.

[Stephen Byrne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot recommend a better historical narrative book than this gem, a fascinating tale that ticks all boxes, Civil wars, poets and writers, crazy families, politics, different decades, Franco, Spanish history, love, death. This is a big book but a fast absorbing read and brilliantly researched and beautifully told writing. It works like a novel and has you invested in the characters who are real people who lived a crazy fascinating life. One of my fav books of this year.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of Spain during its period of fascist rule, the regime’s death rattle, and the beginning of democracy is told through the experience of a literary family. Its patriarch as a young man was jailed as a leftist and saved by his mother’s connections. He coped by aligning with Gen. Franco and after the war joined his administration. He became Spain’s cultural leader and something like a poet laureate. Aaron Shulman shows how Leopoldo Panero’s joining with the Fascists affected his wife and their three sons both during and after his and the regime’s life and death.

Panero may have had to betray his values to survive; but he did not have to drink to excess, have multiple mistresses and abuse his family. He fully lost my sympathy when he threatened his wife, Felicidad, with divorce (in Franco’s Spain where women had no options) because she enjoyed the flirtations of his poet friend. Forget that Leopoldo treated his wife horribly and that the flirtatious poet was gay. Until he died at age 52 he was the cultural darling of the Franco administration.

The Panero sons responded to their famous father in familiar ways: avoiding the legacy (youngest son Michi), rebelling against the legacy while fighting to best it (Leopoldo Maria) and becoming the father (Juan Luis). The book also shows how the sons, 6 years apart, came of age in the different stages of Franco’s decline which meant the loosening of authoritarian rule and an improving economy. In US terms, Juan Luis is the silent generation; Leopoldo Maria the baby boomer and Michi, generation X.

The family agreed to a documentary which aired in 1976 where its tensions and emotional battles were on full view. This did not tarnish their celebrity, and may have added to it. Leopoldo senior has had many posthumous honors. His family home has been made a tourist destination. While many English language poets have had messy lives, I cannot think of a family with a parallel experience.

This book, which synthesized interviews and many sources in English and Spanish, helped me to better understand what it was like to live during the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath. While it stands on its own for the general reader, it is particularly recommended for those interested in Spanish poetry and or life under fascism at its “long shadow”.

[Joseph J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Won with gratitude in a Goodreads giveaway. This book is a tapestry of literary success and failure, family dysfunction and tragedy, set against war and repression in a nation's history. It is the twentieth century saga of the poetic Panero family of Spain, and the frustrated success and patriarchal failings of husband and father Leopoldo. With the assassination of noted writer Federico Garcia Lorca as its starting point, the book chronicles the confusing survivalist politics of Leopoldo during and after the Spanish Civil War. In his marriage to Felicidad, he is joined to one who, like Leopoldo, lost a brother in that tragic conflict. After the war and working for Franco's Fascist government, Leopoldo tries to build a career as a writer and cultural presence as he and Felicidad bring three emotionally stunted and personally doomed sons into the world. While the eldest is named for uncles lost in the war, it is the mentally unstable and suicidal second son, Leopoldo Maria, who will achieve the most tantalizingly close to success literary presence. The youngest son, Michi, leads perhaps the most unfulfilled life of the three. Ironically, with Leopoldo's premature death in 1962, the flawed glue holding this dysfunction together is gone, leaving Felicidad to witness and poorly deal with her sons' stop and start lives. The dysfunction is played out on the changing national stage in the mid-1970's, when the family shockingly chooses to air the family dirty linen in a documentary, oddly influenced by the Bouvier expose' Grey Gardens. The documentary is met with national and personal outrage. The reaction may be shocking to readers today, in our media drenched age; I read this against the backdrop of Michael Jackson and R. Kelley documentaries, and the R. Kelley interview! This painfully personal story of family disintegration is played out against the drama of a Spain emerging from Francisco Franco's repressive rule and drawn out hand-over of power-and death (remember Chevy Chase's opening line?). I enjoy sweeping family histories-the Roosevelts and the Churchills and the Kennedy's-but I was engrossed to discover this Spanish literary family in all of their pain, near success and self-eradication.

[Gary Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fascinating true-life story of how one man's choice of survival, comes to define not only his legacy but the lives of the family he will eventually leave behind. The writer, Aaron Shulman's exacting account of the Spanish writer, Leopoldo Panero, and his literary family also tracks the rise and fall of the ruthless dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Catapulting the reader from the first shots of the Nationalist revolt of 1936 and beyond the eventually prolonged death of Francisco Franco in 1975, Aaron Shulman takes great care in his vivid account of the fractured lives of the Paneros, a family who knew no other way to live except as if their lives were some tremendous literary tragedy. Once a liberal communist during the democratically elected Spanish Second Republic of 1931, the fledgling poet, Leopoldo Panero's eventual embrace of fascism after the Republic's loss of the war in 1939 would illuminate the only way one could survive during a dictatorship determined to extinguish any form of dissent. Eventually becoming known as Franco's "poet laureate," Leopoldo tried his best yet failed miserably as a husband and father until his unexpected death in 1962. But Leopoldo Panero's legacy would continue to be defined by his newly liberated yet long-suffering widow, Felicidad, as well as begin to cast the slow burn of a magnifying glass upon Leopoldo's three surviving male children, Juan Luis, the notorious middle child, Leopoldo María, and the youngest, Michi. The surviving Panero family, whose legendary appearance in documentary meant to commemorate their father, will soon come to define the end of an entire nation's near-40-year hallucination of having to survive a fascist dictatorship. Shulman's lyrically detailed biography is a history lover's dream, surveying the lives of a literary family left with nothing else but to embrace the tragic "fictions" of which they have become.

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading some non-fiction recently where the topic, idea was appealing (one on Arthurian legends, another on exploring urban areas underground) but the prose--eech. Can be clunky, painful. Shulman writes very, very well. He is in control of his material, unspools the stories here well. I've been drawn to Spanish Civil War accounts in books...seems as if last 10 years has brought quite a few, from different angles. Seems to speak to how fascism can arise, human nature shows less than highest standards of behavior. The war in Spain though also brings intersection of history in 20th c. Europe in a uniquely focused manner--political and cultural trends. The writers who enter into the mix is interesting. Schulman's book has been the first that I've attempted which is not dry, a 'then this happened, then this happened, with persons x, y, and z.' I read the first 100 pages today in one sitting. Looking forward to returning to it.

[Kylie Funk Kramer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up on a whim for my birthday. I honestly had no idea what I was getting into, but I knew I had very little knowledge of modern-day Spain. This book was delightful...well, as delightful as a book about Franco's Spain and a self-destructive literary family can be. Aaron Shulman weaves a beautiful tale of historical, poetic, and family value. It feels hard to describe this book but it's definitely worth the read. I would have given it 4.5 stars! Truly riveting to enter the world of the Panero family.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is at once a sweeping history of the last century in Spain, and an intimate portrayal of a fascinating family whose trajectory seems to have mirrored that of the country. I appreciated the research that went into this interesting story, and I look forward to seeing the documentary that launched the author's interest in the family as his subject matter. I have been a student in Spain and of Spain, and this new point of view has added to my interest. Thank you Aaron Shulman!

[Courtney Maum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything I think about this amazing book is here!
http://www.somanydamnbooks.com/episod...

[Geoff Shullenberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somewhat like Roberto Bolaño's novels, this is a book about, by, and for literature geeks (for lack of a better term). However, I suspect that (also like Bolaño's novels) it will capture the attention of many readers who don't self-identify that way, on the strength of its compelling cast of characters, well-constructed narrative arc, and revealing intersections with broader historical developments. On the latter front, this a story of the tumultuous history of Spain in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, by way of a family that was a microcosm of its conflicts, contradictions, highs and lows.

The family patriarch, the poet Leopoldo Panero, offers a sort of antiheroic counterpoint to more familiar contemporaries who, like him, were embroiled in the catastrophe of the Spanish Civil War. Unlike his sometime associate Federico García Lorca, who died a martyr to the Republic, Panero shifted his loyalties from the Republic to Franco's Nationalists mid-war, only to become a quasi-official literary figure of the Franco regime after the conflict ended. His political shift, in Shulman's telling, was a complex admixture of sheer expediency (he almost shared Lorca's fate early in the conflict), political and spiritual evolution (his imprisonment and near execution by Franco's forces brought about a religious awakening that aligned him with Francoist Catholicism) and personal loyalty (his brother Juan died fighting for the Nationalists, and his best friend Luis Rosales was a fervent Franco supporter). Felicidad Blanc, the woman Panero married after the war, underwent similar ideological shifts. Raised in a wealthy conservative family, she gradually became a supporter of the Republic as she lived through the long siege of Madrid, only to shift allegiances once again along with her husband in the postwar years (unlike him, she lived past the death of Franco, and shifted again, in a more liberal direction). So, in contrast to the images of literary heroism and commitment we often associate with the Spanish Civil War (Lorca, Hemingway, etc), Panero and Blanc offer complex instances of compromise and ideological vacillation. Despite their affiliation with Franco's regime, they remained friendly with some exiled leftist writers like Luis Cernuda, but Panero eventually found himself on a poetic collision course with his onetime friend Pablo Neruda, who denounced him as a traitor complicit in the deaths of Lorca and others - and to whom he responded with similar vitriol. As Panero becomes increasingly identified with the stodgy establishment of fascist Spain, Felicidad remains a sly, enigmatic observer of the world around her.

Shulman's book is not only the story of the Paneros but the story of the story of the Paneros: that is to say, the story of how they became a legend for generations of Spaniards, and how they came to understand themselves as such, and live accordingly. This process of self-mythification stemmed partly from Leopoldo's and Felicidad's three sons' efforts to grapple with their father's legacy. The eldest two, Juan Luis and Leopoldo María, both follow in their father's footsteps as poets, while the youngest, Michi, is a would-be writer of fiction and memoir whose actual production was scant. We follow the three sons as they confront their father's sudden death at age 52, then observe and take part in the transformation of Spain as the regime their father supported teeters and collapses, and meanwhile live through self-consciously Oedipal drama with their absent father and sometimes all-too-present mother. All of this culminates in the 1976 documentary "El desencanto," which consists of a series of interviews with Felicidad and her sons about Leopoldo Sr's legacy and much more (and which, Shulman explains early on, was the original inspiration for this project). The film, which largely becomes a (again, Oedipally charged) attack on the deceased husband/father, appeared at the moment of Spain's transition to democracy, and resonated with the nation's symbolic need to kill its already dead father (Franco), and its airing of grievances from three plus decades life under fascism.

This is a story, and a book, that folds in on itself, with the latter half a sort of redoubled reflection on the implications of the first half: the sons, and the widowed Felicidad, remain haunted and paralyzed by the past, as represented by Leopoldo Sr. In this, it resembles "Don Quijote" (to whose title character Shulman compares the Paneros more than once). in the second half of Cervantes's novel, Don Quijote finds himself surrounded by people who have read the first half of the novel, and thus see him as a literary character more than a real person (and of course, they're right). The release of "El desencanto" has a similar effect on the younger Paneros, who are now iconic characters in the national imagination - and both embrace and chafe against this fate. (Felicidad, who strongly identified with Emma Bovary as a young woman, seems to have always seen herself in this way.)

All in all, this is an intergenerational literary biography that reveals the impossibility of disentangling literature and life, of separating history from the stories we tell about it.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The soap opera shenanigans of the Paneros family gets a little tiring in their later years, but this book sings when it focuses on using the Paneros as a mirror, held up against the turmoil of Spain's civil war and the rule of Franco. There are powerful, deeply disturbing moments throughout this book -- a tragic tale of so many misbegotten hopes and dreams.

[Raluca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where was my mistake? Perhaps in confusing literature with life. Books are made to be read, not to live them out next to those who write them.- Felicidad Blanc

Really liked this engrossing, poetic, painful, thorough chronicle of Spain's completely-unknown-to-me literary dynasty, and how their lives mirrored and challenged one of the country's most turbulent historical periods. I want to see the movie now.

[Colin Asher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t buy this book because I had any interest in the Panero family. I bought it because I know and respect Shulman’s work. I expected the highlight of the book to be the craft that went into its composition, but before the end of the third chapter, I was invested in the book’s characters and would have continued reading even if the prose had been flat and turgid. It’s not, luckily, but even if it were, this book would be worth pouring over. In its excavation of Spanish history, it, somehow, manages to tell a sharply relevant story about the clash of politics, faith, and art that feels relevant in America’s current political moment.

[Etienne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never knew much about the Spanish Civil War and its shadow, a little more now.
Knew a little about swaying between camps, families and the motions, much more now.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

I was immediately sucked in by Aaron Shulman's introduction to this book. In it, he establishes his compelling narrative voice and tells the very personal story of how he became interested in the Panero family of Spain when a friend showed him the 1976 documentary, “El desencanto.” That film, a scandal in its time, shot the Panero family to national notoriety, and both documentary and family form the lens through which Shulman examines an era in Spain's history. The story is very much focused on the Panero family, but it provides enough insights along the way about the Spanish Civil War, the Franco regime, and post-Franco Spain, filtered through the experiences of regular people, to satisfy the moderately curious.

I'd say the one word that most encapsulates this story is pathos. It's about a family of unhappy, self-destructive people who have complicated love-hate relationships with each other. The documentary which electrified the nation in 1976 was an explosive tell-all in which the widow and three adult sons of a beloved (or at least respected) national figure angrily dragged the dead man's statue down off its pedestal, smashed it to bits, and flung the shards at each other.

Like any story about a Spanish family, there are lots of kids named after a parent or another older relative, so you have to pay careful attention in the early going to which Leopoldo, Felicidad, or Eloisa the author is talking about at any given moment. Any story featuring this many poets is bound to discuss their actual poetry to some extent, and I find most poetry insufferable, so that was my least favorite aspect.

“From a very early age, Felicidad was captivated by the seductive power of family myths – especially when they were wedded with tragedy.” I heard this statement and promptly thought of Carlos Zafon's Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, which is like a four-book homage to the seductive power of the family myth wedded to tragedy, and I wondered if I had just come to understand something small but profound about the Spanish national character.

Questions I had: I went into this book wondering why the Spanish Civil War became such a cause celebre among so many young intellectuals outside Spain, to the point that people flocked to Spain to fight in it. This book didn't spend a lot of time on that, but I gathered the answer is probably three-fold: (1) It was one of the first, if not THE first, major war to be covered using modern journalistic methods and technology, so the world was able to get more news faster about what was happening in Spain than ever before; (2) it wasn't a war about territory or physical resources but was purely ideological, fought to answer the question of how the government of Spain should run; and (3) Spain had an unusually vigorous and passionate intellectual class, having been created only a decade before with the fall of the tradtional aristocracy, and they were busily churning out stirring prose and verse, determined to win the hearts of and minds of the world. Additionally, for the Americans who were drawn to Spain, it might also be fair to say that American culture was at that time consumed with the notion that America had a duty to promote freedom and democracy around the globe, and the dispatches coming out of Spain made clear that this was one of those must-seize opportunities. Finally, the book opens with the brutal assassination of the nationally beloved poet Federico Lorca in 1936, who was not particularly known for being political, and I can't help wondering to what extent this might have been the proverbial shot heard 'round the world that quickly hardened public sentiment against the Nationalists as nothing but a bunch of jackbooted thugs. Of course, history tells us that all this public fervor wasn't enough to defeat the Nationalists, and Spain went on to live under Franco's fascist rule until he died in 1975.

Audio Notes: Narrator Timothy Andres Pabon has real Spanish cred, as you might guess from his name. His regular narrative is a perfectly neutral American RP, but whenever he hits a real Spanish word or name, it's so Castilian I almost failed to recognize the names of well-known people like Salvador Dali.

I learned more about Castilian Spanish in an hour of listening to this audio than I ever understood before. Everybody knows, for example, that in Spain they famously lisp the letter Z to our TH sound, but I quickly realized that this fricatization trend is just a more extensive version of what goes in in New World Spanish, where it's well known that B sounds a lot like an English V. In Castilian Spanish, many consonants get softened in this way, so D tends to become DH (Madrid sounds kind of like “Mathrith”) and in some regional accents where the effect is most extreme, words like “Leopoldo” sound like “LeopoRRo.” This softly breathy Spanish seems almost the opposite of the staccato rat-a-tat of Mexican Spanish I'm used to hearing around my hometown, although even Mexican Spanish softens its consonants somewhat, relative to English. The name of the major female player, Felicidad, sounds like little more than a mouthful of mush, not far off of, “Felithithath,” although there are subtle differences in the sounds.

[Devon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the fact that I found everyone in the Panero family profoundly unlikable, their story was entertaining to read and the backdrop of first the Spanish Civil War and then life under Franco made for a fascinating read. Well written and paced well, though it was long and occasionally frustrating when the subjects had a tendency to grate on my nerves. I bought this book having never heard of the Paneros and I am glad to have read their story told in such a way, but it certainly didn’t make me a fan of them (not that that’s necessarily the author’s goal).

[Bobby D · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history of Spain over the past 90 years is history as nightmare.
The whole idea of Fascism taking over a country both politically and culturally has fascinated me. Perhaps it is a life long concern that it could happen here if we fail to recognize it and learn from the history of others.
In 2012 the author Aaron Shulman saw the cult Spanish documentary “El Desecanto” which was made in 1976. It is about the Panero family who after the film’s release became cultural icons popular as a touchstone for Spain’s turmoil. The family who Shulman documents is the Father, Leopold Panero, his wife Felicidad and their three Sons. These are not likable people and one wonders how Spanish culture has become so enraptured. They appear again in a second film and in numerous books and studies. Although Shulman does not address the impact of media on the elevation of the Panero family’s notoriety he instead investigates the link between literature, their poetry, and Spain’s history and cultural transition from fascist dictatorship to democracy.
The first half of the book is quite intriguing and splendidly presented as we follow the Father Leopold into his world of literature as a poet with liberal and perhaps communist leanings. But as suddenly as Franco rose out of Africa with his army and merged with the Catholic Church, Monarchist, and dedicated Fascists to start the most violent of civil wars that Leopold changed sides mostly out of the need to survive. He became a Fascist among Fascists and through autocratic incompetence he was able to rise in the Franco government enhancing his fame as poet that supported the regime even becoming it’s cultural censor. He could have just as easily been executed given his past political leanings. Those who knew those who were executed never accepted Leopold or his poetry again.
The books main portrait till its end is Leopold’s wife Felicidad who feels trapped and unloved and restricted by the Fascist insistence on woman maintaining only traditional roles. She looks for love in all the wrong places and sells her husband’s legacy to survive.
The problem for me was with the second half of the book because the three sons which dominate the text are such self-destructive performance artists. They degrade their Father’s memory and yet at the same time try to benefit from it by trying their hand at literature and poetry. In part, because of their fame they find recognition if not admiration and only add to their family’s pain. Fortunately, none of them left any decedents who would have had to cope with one of these tormented impostors.
I would be interested to see the documentary that attracted the author to this passion project. Shulman is an excellent writer and I found the book interesting and maddingly sad. In his Epilogue Shulman tells a personal story about the death of a close friend and its then more than anywhere earlier in the book that I realizd the Panero’s family story is a ghost story.

[Ross Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me the true litmus test of good writing is whether I feel jealousy at not having written certain sentences: I had that sensation on every page. It's perhaps attainable to be "on" for an essay or a chapter. To sustain that level of mastery over 400 pages -- epigrammatic as all get out -- is a feat.

Shulman painted the characters so well -- their darkness, their brightness -- and wrapped in the literary history and history-history of Spain so seamlessly to contextualize their struggles and triumphs and how closely they hewed to the thrum of the country's development such that they became a sort of replayed soundtrack heard in different ways depending on the era.

I had some vague knowledge of the civil war, Garcia Lorca, Unamuno, and Neruda, but this tale of the Paneros unspooled with new characters and unexpected turns. The author understands families and people's ambitious and societies well -- and how families are microcosms of those societies.

The epilogue adds an unexpected new layer to the entire narrative. Without ruining the ending, I'd describe it as an emotional crescendo that left a tingling lingering in my brain -- the sensation of a halo of a yawn that served as my body's attempt to prevent myself from crying on the subway.

[spoko · Rating 2 out of 5]

This isn’t the fault of the book, strictly, but wow—what an unpleasant group of people to spend time with. There wasn’t a single member of this family that I felt any empathy or attachment with. Felicidad was probably the closest, and in any other book she would have been my least favorite character.

The author clearly seems taken with the family and their saga, so I’m not accusing him of painting an ugly portrait. (I’m contrasting Shulman with, say, Robert Caro, where you come away hating the subjects of his biographies because he hates them so much). But I did not enjoy reading this. In addition to the characters themselves, the writing was inconsistent. For much of the first section, I wondered who exactly it was written for. It seemed to be: people who are obsessed with this “literary family,” and know virtually nothing about them. I wouldn’t think there would be a lot of overlap there.

Just as I was about to give up, the writing improved. The narrative is stronger through the middle section of the book, leading up to and during the filming of The Disenchantment. The final section coasts on this push, so that I was able to finish. In the end, I did come away with a bit more understanding of what Spain went through during WWII & Franco’s reign. And I suppose I learned a lot about this family, though I literally couldn’t care less.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whereas Anglo-Europeans utilize rhetorical speeches to stir patriotic fervor, Spaniards use poetry. So here we have one Leonardo Panero, a well known and respected poet in the Spanish tradition, caught in the maw of the 1930s Spanish Civil War.. He's a liberal Nationalist and arrested, thrown into prison and about to be executed. His rich mom pulls strings with the rebel followers of Francisco Franco to get him released. He is accepted into the Franco orbit but his poetic skills are not appreciated. There's much more to this fascinating saga, not only of the progenitor but of his family, mainly his self-destructive sons. All are caught in the civil war's maelstrom and subsequent disorders; they struggle to find a balance between life, literature, changing society and in the end bring about their own oblivion. Thoroughness of Shulman's research is admirable; his prose, engaging.

[Janette Higgins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aaron Shulman’s book, "The Age of Disenchantments," is in the category of “read this because it’s a great book.” You don’t necessarily have to have an interest in Spain’s fraught history to enjoy his kinetic romp through the decades with the talented, but very flawed, Paneros; though you could very well develop an interest because of this book. It’s a remarkably well-researched masterful weaving of Spain’s macro and micro history over the past century and his literary prose carries you along to an end that comes too soon. I’ve read many books on the Spanish Civil War, from a wide range of perspectives, as I prepare my father’s manuscript for publication in June 2020. (Jim Higgins was a Canadian international brigader who fought on the Republican side.) This book made me see Spain’s history in a new light. A brilliant new light.

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alluring and Fascinating story of Franco’s
poet and his family set in the context of the Spanish Civil War. Compelling history, literature, and family saga with threads of insanity, jealousy, politics, self preservation and identity.

A great read for those interested in history, poetry,
politics and Spain

[Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating history of Spain in the 20th century (and touching on the beginning of the 21st) as seen through the the life of one very interesting and very literary family. I admit I didn't know very much about modern Spanish history or the Spanish Civil War going in, other than the bare bones, and what I had read was very filtered through a specific American or British lens: ie. usually through the lens of Hemingway or his ilk and the Spanish Civil War as a "prelude"/build up to War World II rather than a conflict in its own right.

This book is still written by an American, obviously, but it does have some quotes from Spanish poets and soldiers, as well as history. It focuses on Leopoldo Panero, who starts out as a republican during the Civil War and then switches sides and becomes kind of a state poet for the Franco administration, his wife, Felicidad, and their three three sons, Juan Luis, Leopold Maria, and Michi, who are all authors in their own rights. After Leopoldo Sr.'s death the family participates in a Grey Gardens style documentary and that lends the theme of the nature of memory and how we construct our own narrative history to the book.

It made me want to read more about the Spanish Civil War, the Paneros, and also to read more Spanish literature. If anybody has anybody recommendations,

[Veronica Foley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-written nonfiction is always a pleasure to encounter. If you enjoy Erik Larson and Catherine Bailey, you’ll appreciate this one!

[Sholeh Wolpé · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engaging and interesting. Beautifully written. I could not put it down.

[Manoj · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read.

[Tagore · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a pleasure to read. Shulman's expressive language adds color and context unique to non-fiction books.

[LESLIELBERRY · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good story of the Spanish Civil War, but very depressing. The Panero family was unbelievably self-aggrandizing and made a myth out of their lives. How sad for them! I find it hard to believe their poetry is that good. Sounds like their poetry eulogized death as real life.

[Suzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully told, tragic story of a literary family whose lives serve as an ideal backdrop and prism for studying the extremes of Spain's politics, from the era of civil war and beyond. I recommend this book to anyone interested in intellectual history, biography, Spanish literature/culture and family sagas.