Boxer, Beetle
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
NED BEAUMAN HAS BEEN NAMED AS ONE OF GRANTA MAGAZINE'S BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS 2013
Longlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the for the Guardian First Book Award, Ned Beauman was chosen by The Culture Show as one of the twelve Best New British Writers in 2011.
This is a novel for people with breeding.
Only people with the right genes and the wrong impulses will find its marriage of bold ideas and deplorable characters irresistible. It is a novel that engages the mind while satisfying those that crave the thrill of a chase.
There are riots and sex. There is love and murder. There is Darwinism and Fascism, nightclubs, invented languages and the dangerous bravado of youth. And there are lots of beetles.
It is clever. It is distinctive. It is entertaining.
We hope you are too.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This 2010 Guardian First Book Award finalist uses current day London resident Kevin "Fishy" Broom, who collects rare Nazi paraphernalia (though is "not a secret Nazi" himself) and is distinguished by an unfortunate genetic defect that leaves him smelling strongly of rotting fish, as a frame through which to contain an ebullient and thrilling narrative. The heart of the story is the unlikely connection between a beetle-obsessed entomologist, eugenicist, repressed homosexual, and fascist Philip Erskine, and "Sinner" Roach, a nine-toed, 4-ft. 11-in., sadistic, alcoholic Jewish boxer. Doing a favor for a friend, Fishy discovers a murdered man and the prize he'd hidden for years: a note from Hitler thanking Dr. Erskine for his "kind tribute." This auspicious beginning plunges the novel into East London, mid 1930s, where it largely remains, save for a few brief returns to the present involving Fishy's kidnapping by a Welsh Nazi cultist and their investigation of Erskine's past. Though Beauman bites off a lot to convincingly chew and fumbles the odd simile, his novel is irreverent, profane, and very funny. Best of all, he writes prose that, like Chabon's, has the power to startle, no small feat in a debut.
