Las buenas conciencias / The Good Conscience
Novel , 1959
Penguin Random House
Pages: 184
The Good Conscience is Carlos Fuentes's second novel. The scene is Guanajuato, a provincial capital in Central Mexico, once one of the world's richest mining centers. The Ceballos family has been reinstated to power, and adolescent Jaime Ceballos, its only heir, is torn between the practical reality of his family's life and the idealism of his youth and his Catholic education. His father is a good man but weak; his uncle is powerful, yet his actions are inconsistent with his professed beliefs. Jaime's struggle to emerge as a man with a "good conscience" forms the theme of the book: can a rebel correct the evils of an established system and at the same time retain the integrity of his principles?
“In a captivating prose and a narrative filled with convincing descriptions of a variety of locations and psychological states, this novel, published in 1959, is a startling depiction of a society rent by hypocrisy.” La Vanguardia