Antonio
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A brilliant, magisterial novel of family secrets simmering beneath the surface
Benjamin, on the verge of becoming a father, discovers a tragic family secret involving patrimony and determines to get to the root of. Those most immediately involved are all dead, but their three closest confidantes are still alive—Isabel, his grandmother; Haroldo, his grandfather’s friend; and Raul, his father’s friend—and each will tell him a different version of the facts.
By collecting these shards of memories, which offer personal glimpses into issues of class and politics in Brazil, Benjamin will piece together the painful puzzle of his family history. Like a Faulkner novel, Beatriz Bracher’s brilliant Antonioshows the expansiveness of past events and the complexity of untangling long-buried secrets.
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.
