Quicksand
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- 3,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
'A tour de force of sustained brilliance' Mail on Sunday
Wildly funny and unceasingly surprising, Quicksand is both a satirical masterpiece and an unforgettable story of fate, family and friendship.
Aldo Benjamin may be the unluckiest soul in human history, but that isn't going to stop his friend Liam writing about him. For what more could an aspiring novelist want from his muse than a thousand get-rich-quick schemes, a life-long love affair, an eloquently named brothel, the most sexually confusing evening imaginable and a brief conversation with God?
'What a joy to surrender oneself to a writer of such prodigious talent.'
Peter Carey
'Tremendous' Sunday Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The second novel from Toltz (A Fraction of the Whole) is all about the eccentric and ambitious Aldo Benjamin. Set in Australia, Aldo's tragicomic story is told by his friend, policeman and failed writer Liam Wilder. Plagued by mountains of debt and dogged by a series of deaths, Aldo botches one suicide attempt, and the collateral damage leads to an accusation of attempted infanticide. Uncommonly unlucky, Aldo's bad fortune stretches back into his high school years when, as a virgin, he was falsely accused of rape. Later in life he is accused of murdering his girlfriend, and his digressive testimony at the subsequent trial occupies the second half of the book. Yet Aldo remains constantly buoyed by ideas for another business plan, another scheme, another way to die. Eventually Aldo finds himself crippled marooned on a magic beach, and it is there that he finally concocts the perfect business plan. Toltz channels a poet's delight in crafting the perfect phrase on every highly quotable page. In his epic lack of employment and sincere lust for life, Aldo Benjamin is quite a memorable character. By turns hilarious and hopeless, Toltz's novel is a tender portrait of a charming and talented loser.
