“Barrabás came to us by sea,” 10-year-old Clara del Valle writes neatly in her notebook. She is in the habit of recording all events, big and small, but she has no way of knowing that her notebooks will later be used to “reclaim the past” and “overcome terrors.” Clara’s father, Severo, has political aspirations and her mother, Nívea, hopes her husband is successful so that she can fight for women’s rights from the inside. Clara has special “mental powers,” which her family tries to keep secret. She can read auras and predict disasters, make the saltshaker move across the table without touching it, and talk to spirits. One day, two men arrive with a coffin, and Nana, the servant in charge of the children, runs in the house and tells Nívea that her brother Marcos has died overseas of a mysterious plague. Nívea and the children, especially Clara, are devastated; however, Barrabás, a puppy of indeterminate breed, is among Marcos’s personal possessions, and Clara quickly falls in love with him. Clara’s sister, Rosa, is engaged to Esteban Trueba, who has been away for two years working in the northern mines. Esteban is madly in love with Rosa, and he writes her countless letters. Severo’s political ambitions within the Liberal Party soon pay off, and he runs in the Congressional election to represent a province in the south. A roasted pig arrives as a gift from the southern voters, along with a decanter of the finest brandy. Within days, the pig is gone, and Clara announces there will be an accidental death in the family. The next day, Rosa develops a fever, and the family physician, Dr. Cuevas, orders sweet lemonade with a splash of liquor. Nana gives Rosa some of the brandy, which Rosa drinks and goes to bed. In the morning, Nana finds Rosa dead. The brandy, which was laced with rat poison, was meant for Severo. Rumors spread that the Conservative Party sent the brandy to Severo as revenge for joining the Liberal Party despite his high social status, but this is never confirmed. The only thing known for sure is that the brandy did not come from the southern voters. The entire del Valle family is devasted, as is Esteban Trueba, who returns from the mines. In her grief, Clara stops speaking and remains silent for many years.
Esteban decides not to return to the mine and goes instead to Tres Marías, his family’s rundown hacienda. When Esteban arrives, the estate is in ruins, and a peasant named Pedro Segundo García has been serving as unofficial foreman. Esteban immediately goes to work fixing up the main house, rebuilding the barns, and planting the fields. Directing the peasants, Esteban laughs at the idea of “class struggle”—he believes the peasants are lost without a strong patrón like him to guide them. Esteban builds a schoolhouse and a general store, and he even builds brick houses for the peasants, which is unheard of on other estates. He works for months and grows restless and anxious. Esteban feels that he needs a woman, so he rapes a peasant girl named Pancha García. After this, he is so busy working and raping other peasant women that he is the last to notice Pancha’s pregnancy. Many peasant women claim that Esteban has fathered their children, but he doesn’t believe them. He does, however, believe that Pancha’s son is his, but still refuses to acknowledge any “bastard offspring.” To avoid such drama in the future, Esteban visits a local brothel where he meets a prostitute named Tránsito Soto. She has big dreams and asks Esteban to borrow her 50 pesos to help make them happen. Esteban doesn’t know what she will do with the money, but he is fond of Tránsito, so he gives it to her.
In the meantime, Esteban receives a telegram from his sister, Férula, which claims their mother, Doña Ester, is dying and wants to see him. Esteban doesn’t particularly love his mother, but he returns home, where Doña Ester begs him to settle down with a respectable wife and have sons to carry on his name. As Doña Ester dies, Esteban goes to the del Valle residence and asks Severo if he has any available daughters. The only daughter left is Clara, Severo says, and she refuses to speak and sees ghosts. Esteban likes silence and isn’t afraid of ghosts, so he asks to meet her. Clara, finally speaking again, tells Esteban that she has been waiting for him. Esteban falls madly in love with Clara, and they soon announce their engagement at a lavish party, during which Barrabás is mysteriously stabbed and dies in Clara’s lap. Severo and Nívea fear the dog’s death is a bad omen, but the wedding plans progress. Esteban, now a wealthy man, begins construction on a mansion, which soon comes to be known as the big house on the corner, and Clara invites Férula to move in with them. After their honeymoon, when they arrive at the house for the first time, Clara faints when she sees Esteban has made Barrabás made into a rug. “I told you she wouldn’t like it,” Férula says to Esteban.
Before long, Clara is pregnant, and Esteban must return to Tres Marías. Férula and Clara settle into a comfortable routine without him and grow incredibly close. Férula waits on Clara hand and foot and resents Esteban and the masculine disruption he brings to the house. Clara talks endlessly to her unborn child, which she knows is a girl and has already named Blanca. After Blanca is born, Férula is so busy taking care of both Clara and the baby that she has little time to resent Esteban. When Blanca is just a child, Clara and Esteban decide to spend summers at Tres Marías, where Blanca plays with Pedro Segundo’s son, Pedro Tercero. Clara writes in her notebook that Tres María is her “mission” in life, and she takes to spreading her mother’s messages of equality to the peasants. Esteban is furious and claims he won’t tolerate a suffragette wife espousing nonsense, but she pays little attention and continues her talks with the peasants. Clara becomes pregnant again—which Férula takes as a personal insult—and they go back to the big house on the corner, where Clara gives birth to twin boys, Jaime and Nicolás. The night Clara gives birth, Esteban goes to the local brothel, the Christopher Columbus, where he is surprised to find Tránsito Soto. She offers to pay back the 50 pesos, but Esteban says he would rather she owe him a favor.
Nana moves into the big house on the corner to help Férula with the children, and the Mora sisters, three local students of spiritualism, are drawn to Clara and the house. The women move in, and even though Esteban doesn’t approve, he says nothing because he loves his wife. In the meantime, Esteban grows tired of the closeness of Clara and Férula’s relationship and banishes Férula from the house. Clara tries to divine Férula’s location, but she is unable to find her. In the meantime, more students of spiritualism arrive and move into the house, and Clara spends her days talking to ghosts and levitating furniture. Time passes, and the Truebas continue spending summers at Tres Marías, where Blanca falls madly in love with Pedro Tercero. Esteban hates Pedro Tercero, who plays a guitar and sings songs of revolution, but Blanca sneaks out her window every night to meet him. A Frenchman named Jean de Satigny comes to stay at Tres Marías and notices Blanca immediately. He follows Blanca when she sneaks out to meet Pedro Tercero and finds them making love by the river. Jean goes directly to Esteban, who jumps on his horse and meets Blanca halfway home. He violently beats Blanca, and when Clara objects, Esteban knocks out Clara’s teeth.
Clara and Blanca return to the big house on the corner, and Clara never speaks to Esteban again. It soon becomes clear that Blanca is pregnant, and Esteban forces her to marry Jean de Satigny to avoid public scandal. Their marriage doesn’t last long, however—Blanca leaves Jean after she discovers his pastime of photographing their male servants naked. Blanca returns home to Clara, where Jaime, who is studying to become a doctor, delivers Blanca’s daughter, Alba. Alba grows up in the house, surrounded by Clara’s magic and Esteban’s love. Esteban has little tolerance for his own children, but he deeply loves Alba. One day, Blanca takes Alba to meet a famous man who sings songs on the radio. The man is Pedro Tercero, but Blanca doesn’t tell Alba he is her father. Clara dies on Alba’s seventh birthday, and the entire family is devastated, especially Esteban, who lives the rest of his life in mourning. The big house on the corner deteriorates with Clara’s death, and Esteban’s relationship with his family continues to worsen. He even sends Nicolás—whose only interest is Clara’s spiritualism—abroad, and he tells him never to come back. Esteban’s friends take him to the local brothel to cheer him up, where Esteban is again surprised to find Tránsito Soto. She oversees the brothel now, which she runs as a cooperative. Everyone is happy, she says, and no one is exploited.
When Alba is 18, she falls in love with Miguel, a law student and outspoken socialist who leads protests at the university. Alba supports Miguel’s cause, and after she sits in on a protest that lasts days, she encounters Colonel Esteban García, a former peasant from Tres Marías and Esteban Trueba’s biological grandson. Esteban García sexually assaulted Alba multiple times during childhood. In the following weeks, the Socialist Candidate is elected President of the Republic, and their divided nation is consumed by political unrest. Esteban Trueba, who serves as the Senator of the Republic, and the other conservative politicians plan a military coup d’état to seize control of the government and rid it of Marxism once and for all. But once the military takes over, they murder the President, suspend congress, and refuse to relinquish power. Jaime is killed early in the coup, and Miguel goes off to fight with the guerillas. Blanca hides Pedro Tercero—who is on the new government’s wanted list—in the house, and Esteban, still in shock over Jaime’s death, helps Blanca and Pedro flee the country. Alba follows Blanca’s lead and begins hiding wanted revolutionaries in the house until she can help them escape the country, but Esteban knows nothing about it—or that the police have their house under surveillance.
Alba is arrested in the middle of the night and taken blindfolded to an unknown location, where she is questioned by a man whose voice she immediately recognizes as Esteban García’s. He asks her about Miguel, and when she refuses to talk, she is beaten, tortured, and raped. Weeks later, after receiving three of Alba’s fingers in the mail, Esteban goes to see Tránsito Soto. Miguel helps Esteban look for Alba and suggests Esteban go see Tránsito, who knows many important people in her line of work. She finds Alba two days later and arranges to get her home. Back at the big house on the corner, Esteban and Alba fix up the crumbling mansion, and Esteban suggests they write this story. After Esteban says all he has to say, he goes to Clara’s bed and dies happy and pain-free. At the moment of his death, Clara’s spirit appears, smiling and laughing as she was in the prime of her life. Now, Alba is having a baby—a daughter, she knows—though she isn’t sure who the father is. What matters is that the child is her daughter; Alba also know it’s important to record her experiences in her own notebook, so that others will know her story as well. “Barrabás came to us by sea…” Alba writes.
