BRAT
A Ghost Story
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- 15,99 €
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- 15,99 €
Publisher Description
THE INSTANT CULT CLASSIC FROM THE WINNER OF THE O. HENRY PRIZE
‘Full of dark, deadpan humour, Brat is a raucous story of the messy, messed-up business of living, dying and having a family.’ Financial Times
‘A moving coming-of-age family story’ Observer
'Beautifully written, hilarious, and heartbreaking' Daily Mail
'A raw, delicate tale about grief and growing up' The New Yorker
'Iconic', Radio 1
'The novel crackles with gothic horror, deadpan humor, and a damning sense of alienation that you won’t soon shake.' Chicago Review of Books
'Instead of resolving his novel’s many mysteries, Smith explores how this family navigates the disputed borders of its shared memories, pondering what it means to choose one story over another—as well as the consequences of refusing to choose, especially in the wake of grief.' The New York Times
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Gabriel’s skin is falling off.
His dad is dead.
He owes his editor a novel.
His girlfriend won’t answer his calls.
Tasked by his horribly well-adjusted brother with clearing out the family home for sale, Gabriel’s sanity quickly begins to unravel. His parents’ old manuscripts appear to change each time he reads them. A bizarre home video hints at long-buried secrets. And there’s a hideous man in the garden.
Disquieting and hilarious, taut yet lyrical, blisteringly-paced but formally inventive, Brat is a mediation on grief, art and love that will leave you altered, breathless and desperate for more.
From a stunningly original new talent, this is a debut novel unlike anything you have read before.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Smith blends autofiction and absurdity in his provocative if underwhelming first novel, which follows a 20-something writer named Gabriel who's tasked by his mother with clearing out his childhood home and putting it up for sale after his father's death. Life is already tough for Gabriel. He's having trouble writing, and is heartbroken after a split from his girlfriend, also a writer, whose work is gaining popularity on the internet. Moreover, the top layer of Gabriel's skin has been peeling off for some unknown reason. Others believe it's only eczema, but he's not convinced ("It looked like a glove of myself"), and he copes by drifting through his days on Xanax. His father was a writer, and after finding manuscripts written by his mother, who lives in a nursing home, Gabriel learns she was one, too. Every time he picks up his mother's manuscripts, they seem to change. And not only that—the characters in his mother's stories come to life and warn him not to sell the house. Unfortunately, the intriguing plot is undercut by pedestrian prose ("I went out of my father's study and took half of one of the pink Xanax bars and lay down on the sofa and waited for my thoughts to turn off"). This doesn't quite match the scale of its ambition.
