[Coronation] describes the last months in the life of Misiá Elisa Grey de Abalas, a woman of ninety-four, once a great beauty, now a bedridden skeleton attended by two aging but faithful servants, Rosario and Lourdes. She claims to be descended from royalty, and insists that she is a saint as well as a queen. Her saintliness, however, is intermittent, for she has terrible fits of temper in which her language becomes "obscene, virulent, desperate."…

Almost the only person to share with the devoted servants the responsibility for looking after Misiá Elisa is her grandson, Don Andrés…. Now in his fifties, Don Andrés has his own apartment, but from time to time, however reluctantly, he visits the old lady. Largely because of her influence, he has grown up to be afraid of life and has withdrawn himself from it as far as possible. (p. 27)

The book...