While Isabel Allende is most often associated with the lush family sagas and magical realism of The House of the Spirits and Eva Luna, The Infinite Plan takes a different path.

Here she turns her attention toward the United States, tracing the life of Gregory Reeves from childhood poverty through war, ambition, love, failure and reinvention. The result is perhaps her most overtly social and psychological novel. At its centre is a question that runs through much of Allende's work: how do the stories we inherit shape the lives we believe are possible? Gregory spends much of the novel pursuing the "infinite plan" of the title—a grand vision of order, meaning and self-mastery inherited from his father's eccentric spiritual teachings. Yet history, class, race, immigration and desire continually unsettle that promise. What emerges is a sweeping portrait of twentieth-century America seen through the eyes of those living at its edges.

Though less frequently discussed than her most famous novels, The Infinite Plan remains one of Allende's most ambitious works. It exchanges ghosts and miracles for social observation, but retains the emotional generosity and narrative momentum that made her one of the most widely read novelists of her generation.

HarperCollins first UK edition, first printing, 1993. Hardback with dust jacket. A clean, well-kept copy in very good condition.