SOURCE: Foster, David William. Review of La familia del héroe, by Camilo José Cela. Books Abroad 40, no. 3 (summer 1966): 318.

In the following review, Foster offers a thematic and stylistic analysis of La familia del héroe.

As a work of fiction, La familia del héroe demonstrates Cela's continued inspiration by the European new novel, a tendency in his fiction which began with Mrs. Caldwell habla con su hijo (1958) and matured with Tobogán de hambrientos (1962). Garito de hospicianos (1963) seems to be more a collection of unrelated essays, a few with narrative overtones, than a novel, although the style and thematics are identical to Cela's works of fiction. The most prominent characteristic of Cela's work is the new novel's substitution of pattern for plot. In the novel under review, Evangelino Gadoupa Faquitrós, grandson of the hero, don Samuel Faquitrós, relates to a group of contertulianos the...