Every Arc Bends Its Radian
A Novel
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
From PEN Award–winning author Sergio de la Pava comes a “roiling, noirish, existential explosion of a novel” (Vanity Fair) about a private investigator who escapes New York City for Colombia, where he finds himself entangled in the mystery of a young woman’s disappearance—which may be connected to one of the world’s most ruthless criminal organizations.
Riv—poet, philosopher, private eye—arrives in Cali, Colombia, hoping to find reprieve. Running away from an unspeakable event surrounding his ex Jane, Riv accidentally connects with his cousin Mauro and family friend Carlotta, who asks him to find her daughter Angelica Alfa-Ochoa. No sooner is Riv on the trail when it becomes clear that not only are the cops not looking for Angelica, but they are actively preventing him from finding her. This could be a good thing because the police are clearly in the pocket of one Exeter Mondragon, a name best never uttered in public if one wants to stay alive.
But Riv is not one to leave things incomplete. When his investigation leads him straight into the heart of Mondragon’s criminal empire, he is forced to face unimaginable horrors and plunge into the deepest and most perplexing conundrums of the human condition.
Lighting fast on the page and steeped in the cultural history of Colombia, Every Arc Bends Its Radian is a novel only Sergio de la Pava could write. As incredibly funny as it is ridiculously smart, it poses large existential questions while keeping you laughing. A novel idea about the biggest idea of them all—what in God’s name are we even put on earth for—this book is a singular philosophical exploration of the human psyche.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
What begins as a familiar PI tale morphs into a Pynchonesque nightmare in this confounding concoction from de la Pava (Lost Empress). Riv del Rio has come from New York City to Cali, Colombia, to escape a recent trauma. He quickly reconnects with his cousin Mauro and an older family friend named Carlotta, who asks Riv, a self-described "poet/philosopher/private eye," to track down her missing daughter, Angelica. With Mauro's help, Riv determines that Angelica is being held by Exeter Mondragon, a sadistic crime lord with a self-stated mission to "deepen despair, misery, horror." Though Riv acknowledges he stands little chance of rescuing Angelica, he enters Mondragon's lair and is promptly captured, with Mondragon laying out an elaborate plan to torture and kill him over the course of 18 hours. Mondragon's agenda changes, however, when Angelica reemerges, and the story takes a hard turn into the realm of speculative fiction. The narrative momentum is frequently stalled by Riv's philosophical musings ("Whenever illegitimate power is exercised, the universe grants us the opposite power to author its disruption"), and readers looking for a straightforward mystery will be frustrated by de la Pava's hodgepodge of moods and genres. Still, there's no denying that this bizarre detective story holds a hypnotizing power all its own.
