Come Sunday
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
A densely layered journey into the dark heart of the American Dream that spans continents and centuries
In Bradford Morrow’s debut novel, lightning-tongued mercenary Peter Krieger travels to Nicaragua to kidnap a man who may be a 480-year-old former conquistador—and therefore could hold the secret to immortality. When Krieger attempts to sell his captive to a reclusive scientist in upstate New York, he sets off on a globe-spanning expedition, in which he encounters an enormous cast of idealists, crackpots, and revolutionaries. And his one-time lover, Hannah Burden, who raises cattle in an illegal loft ranch in Manhattan, still stands between him and his nefarious, astonishing ambitions. A rousingly hilarious, yet tragic epic about the dark side of the American Dream, Come Sunday is fueled by Morrow’s captivating style, breadth of reference, and depth of insight, and spins old myths of the New World into unexpected and haunting forms.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the center of this highly charged, densely allusive first novel is a primitive spirited out of the Nicaraguan jungle, who may or may not be Cristobal de Olid, a 480-year-old escapee from Cortes's army. His captor is Peter Krieger, a sleazy, fast-talking opportunist who is trying to sell the man he calls "It'' to a mysterious American. From this intriguing transaction emerges a tale that unspools in ever-widening circles to encompass Matteo Lupi, an Italian ex-terrorist who escorts de Olid north; Hannah Burden, who houses them on the cattle ranch she runs secretly from a Manhattan warehouse; and Jonathan Berkeley, scion of a decaying New England family that is complex enough to merit a novel of its own. The author skitters back and forth across decades, continents and narrative voices with a speed that often renders his plot impenetrable, and Krieger's rambling comic meditations on everything from Diderot to Bullwinkle wear thin. But the scope and authority of Morrow's writing and the power of his bitter, death-haunted characters make this a notable debut, even when it stalls.
