Antonio
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
<p>Benjamim, a young man on the cusp of fatherhood, discovers a disturbing family secret: before his father was born, his paternal grandfather had a child with Benjamim's mother. With both men dead, Benjamim turns to three of their confidantes to piece together his family history: Haroldo, his grandfather's best friend; Isabel, his grandmother; and Raul, a friend from his father's youth.
Through their conflicting testimonies, full of blind spots and contradictions, Benjamim will gradually learn of the secrets and conflicts that shattered his wealthy family; of his father's search for meaning in the poverty of the backlands, and of his slide into madness. In prose of great subtlety and penetrating insight, Beatriz Bracher builds an indelible portrait of a family and a society in decay.</p>
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Brazilian Bracher (I Didn't Talk) takes a dazzling look at the invisible burdens that haunt a well-to-do family in contemporary Brazil. The novel follows Benjamim, a young man on the cusp of fatherhood, who has recently learned that his mother had the child of his paternal grandfather before his father was born. Though both men are dead, Benjamim feels compelled to reach out to Haroldo, his grandfather's best friend; Isabel, his grandmother; and Raul, his father's friend, to learn as much as he can about the roots of the tragedy. Yet each of the people he contacts has different blind spots, and each has their own agenda, too, even as they do their best to help Benjamim piece together the truth. Contradictions abound, facts blur, and yet a cohesive narrative of great loss comes together. Bracher simultaneously pulls off a searing portrait of class in São Paulo—"We weren't a rich family, but we were a ‘good' family, and that was what mattered," Isabel tells Benjamim—and of both hereditary trauma and family tenderness. This spellbinding and surprising work announced Bracher as one of the most fascinating contemporary Brazilian writers.
