The Shape of Bones
Published on 6. April 2017
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-0-241-14594-4 (ISBN)
Description
'Like a cross of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and American Psycho' Financial Times
From one of Brazil's foremost literary voices comes a gripping, visceral new novel about youth, power and the nature of manhood
A man rises at 5 a.m. and leaves his home. He does not wake his wife or child to bid them goodbye. He starts his car - an SUV filled with survival gear - but does not drive to his friend's house as planned. Instead he glides through the sleeping streets of Porto Alegre, haunted by ghosts of himself: the fearless boy riding a battered stunt bike, the silent adolescent fascinated by bodies and violence, the obsessive young surgeon, the distant husband.
As the dawn comes on and people slowly fill the streets, the man drives unthinkingly, inexorably, toward the old neighbourhood of his youth. What is pulling him back there? Perhaps the need to make something happen, perhaps just nostalgia. Or perhaps the search for absolution - from a crime he has carried in his heart for fifteen years.
From one of Brazil's foremost literary voices comes a gripping, visceral new novel about youth, power and the nature of manhood
A man rises at 5 a.m. and leaves his home. He does not wake his wife or child to bid them goodbye. He starts his car - an SUV filled with survival gear - but does not drive to his friend's house as planned. Instead he glides through the sleeping streets of Porto Alegre, haunted by ghosts of himself: the fearless boy riding a battered stunt bike, the silent adolescent fascinated by bodies and violence, the obsessive young surgeon, the distant husband.
As the dawn comes on and people slowly fill the streets, the man drives unthinkingly, inexorably, toward the old neighbourhood of his youth. What is pulling him back there? Perhaps the need to make something happen, perhaps just nostalgia. Or perhaps the search for absolution - from a crime he has carried in his heart for fifteen years.
Reviews / Votes
Impressive, visceral and tender . . . A work of art whose echoes persist long after the final page Masterful, compelling and stylish . . . Galera draws so much life into a single line, leading beyond the pages of the book and out to the horizon -- Barney Norris, author of 'Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain' Ferociously intelligent... A tense, atmospheric meditation on the hypnotic pull of the past. Daniel Galera is a thrilling writer, and this novel is nothing short of essential -- Laura van den Berg, author of 'Find Me' Publisher's description. A visceral coming-of-age story set against a backdrop of violence and turbulent desire in the blistering Brazilian suburbs. Taut with the threat of sex and savagery, this is a book about bodies and their limits, about how it feels to be young and what it means to become a man. * Penguin * Daniel Galera understands that violence is mysteriously capable of restoring a person to reality and preparing him to meet his moment of grace. His characters bear life's inevitable weight of guilt and shame, all the while striving to resolve the fearful events of the past -- Susanna Moore, author of 'The Life of Objects' Vividly radiates a sense of unease and menace. I found myself constantly absorbed by it * New Statesman on 'Blood-Drenched Beard' * Coolly seductive, expansively mythic, with an unsettling sense of something indefinably out of joint beneath a veneer of small-town normality. . . . A tensely atmospheric novel [with] a dangerous undertow * Guardian on 'Blood-Drenched Beard' *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 144 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
379 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-14594-4 (9780241145944)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Daniel Galera
The Shape of Bones
E-Book
04/2017
1st Edition
Penguin Books Ltd
€8.99
Available for download
Persons
Daniel Galera (Author)
Daniel Galera was born in Sao Paulo in 1979. He co-founded the influential publishing house Livros do Mal, and has translated David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith and Irvine Welsh into Brazilian Portuguese. He has published a collection of short stories and three novels, including Blood-Drenched Beard, as well as an acclaimed graphic novel (with Rafael Coutinho).
Daniel Galera was born in Sao Paulo in 1979. He co-founded the influential publishing house Livros do Mal, and has translated David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith and Irvine Welsh into Brazilian Portuguese. He has published a collection of short stories and three novels, including Blood-Drenched Beard, as well as an acclaimed graphic novel (with Rafael Coutinho).