Novels
Sandra Marie Santayana's first novel "Frida - relationships and other desasters" was published for the first time in March 2004 at the Editorial Gardeur (ISBN 3-935852-18-5).
The book (166 pages) is not yet translated into English, but the German version can be ordered directly at any online-library such as www.amazon.de and costs about 10€. Furthermore you can request it directly at www.santayana.net - for your order just clic here.
Santayana also wrote already a second book, a psycho thriller called "Kayleigh" which will be published soon.
About the storyboard:
"The life of the fashion designer Frida Eschenbach could have been so easy and pleasant - if only her boyfried, the eternal yuppie and photographer Rutger, wouldn't have split up with her in a quite disgusting way. Or if her mother would't mix up all the time Frida's private life, bugging her with totally incompatible "fiancés". If her unlucky childhood and her sad pasttime in France wouln't still hurt her sometimes and if the mysterious stranger wouldn't seem much too perfect to her, if her niece Jeannie wouldn't be a lesbian, if her jewish family wouldn't be incomparible caotic and if her dates wouldn't be as impossible as her new haircut... Sometimes the desire inside Frida to run away and hide from all her problems becomes much too big - but slowly she discovers that it isn't a solution for a whole lifetime. Whether Frida conforms herself with life's difficulties and her own eternal doubts, will be discovered time after time during a colourful voyage through an early midlife-crisis, leading the main character from the small provincial town Schwandorf to Munich, Freiburg and even to Paris and the magical Bretagne."
About the book:
The origins of the novel "Frida - relationships and other desasters" go back to 1993, when young Sandra Marie Santayana already knew that becoming an author was her life's biggest goal. As time went by the storyboard as well as the main characters changed and "grew up" together with Santayana, but the places and the main charcter's curious name - Frida - remained the same. For that reason Santayana decided to leave the date in final version of her novel at the year 1993. The book is written both in diary-version as episodically told by a third person. Santayana denies strictly the authobiographic touch ascribed to her first novel, although she admits that it's impossible to any author avoid the influence of personal experiences when writing a story.
"Sandra Marie Santayana describes in her first novel a premature midlife crisis of an excellent class. Despite her youth - she only counts 23 years - the in Ibiza, Spain, living painter and writer juggles masterly with words and brings with an sharp tongue the most incredibly charcters near to the reader. (...) We are talking about a short-waved book, just perfect to colour up the grey moments of our daily routine."
(Elmar Krekeler, DIE WELT)
"(...) With many sharp points between the lines she mixes up the petty bourgeois. Entertainment is her device; the story's language is direct and colleague. (...) No way to get bored!"
(Michael Hitzek, MZ)
"(...) Frida's searching for moral stability in life shows up many human defects which Santayana describes in an amusing way, but also with the necessarily seriousness."
(Editorial Gardeur)
Sandra Marie Santayana during a presentation of her first novel in Germany.
