Meet Dr John Seracino, predatory ladies' man and born misanthrope. All he wants in life is a property free of any annoying neighbours. But Seracino has a problem: he resides in Gibraltar, where almost everybody lives in flats and where detached properties come at a premium. For the last few years he has been attending property auctions in the hope of bagging himself one of the old colonial bungalows that intermittently come up for sale. So far, though, he keeps getting outbid by lawyers and bankers, men for whom the annual £90,000 that Seracino earns as a GP are no more than small change. Then one day Seracino’s luck changes and he manages to land himself an old colonial property in the Upper Rock area, the aptly named Solitude House. For the first couple of weeks the misanthropic doctor sits every evening on his newly refurbished veranda, looking out over the Bay of Gibraltar with a glass of his favourite alcoholic tipple. But events are about to take an unexpectedly nasty and frightening turn.... In the wickedly irreverent Solitude House, Gibraltarian author M. G. Sanchez explores the idea of self-imposed solitude in a narrative tinged with supernatural and psychological elements, as well as the Gibraltarian themes that have traditionally underpinned his writing.
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"With his new novel, M.G. Sanchez not only brings to the fore the theme of Gibraltar identity and society, but he also widens his gaze and considers the historical interconnections with another Anglophone territory in the Mediterranean: Malta." Dr Esterino Adami, Department of Humanities, University of Turin.