The narrators of Permafrost (2018), Boulder (2020) and Mammoth, a triptych of novels by the Catalan writer Eva Baltasar, have much in common. They are young, and lesbian, and nameless. They live, or once lived, in Barcelona. And they are disillusioned with the expectations of modern life. Early in adulthood each woman realises that the middle-class mores of her childhood mask widespread conformity and a life of tedium. The way ahead looks bleak. ‘I was tired of inventing resumés,’ says the protagonist of Boulder, who has just taken a job as a cook on a merchant ship. She was tired, too, ‘of having to pretend life had a structure, as though there were a metal rod inside me keeping me upright and steady’. The women also have ambitions: freedom, plenitude, pleasure. Permafrost’s narrator travels to Scotland and Belgium in pursuit of low-effort jobs so that she can indulge her shameless sensuality. She spends her days reading (philosophy, art history), enjoying food (Camembert, Godiva chocolates) and having sex.