Spanish Practices - Richard Townsend

'Spanish Practices' weaves together nearly half a century of observations by Rico, an Englishman married into an eccentric family in a left-behind corner of Spain. Among others, we meet Macu, the maiden aunt who runs the family wine business with an iron fist and controls the family purse-strings; mother-in-law Mami, whose sons can do no wrong, except when they do; brother-in-law Chus, who has a loose interpretation of the marriage vows and a dangerous weakness for the bottle; and younger brother-in-law Sancho, who becomes pivotal to the family's succession battles and their struggles with the local rival winery. Initially an outsider, Rico is drawn ever deeper into the family mire as well as facing, with his wife Marina, his own fraught relationships with neighbours, local planning laws and the busy body 'Authorities'. Through the interplay of rivalries, conflicts and vicissitudes 'Spanish Practices' illuminates the idiosyncrasies of Spanish ways and exemplifies the travails of a society in the throes of wholesale transformation.