The Invisible Mile
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A grueling race, a haunting past. The 1928 Ravat-Wonder team, the first English-speaking team in the Tour de France, faces a brutal challenge: 5,476 kilometers of unsealed roads on fixed-wheel bikes. They weren't expected to finish, yet stadiums roar with their names.
The Invisible Mile reimagines this tour from within the peloton. A young New Zealander's test of endurance becomes a psychological descent into the war's chaos. Fueled by cocaine and opium, victory and defeat blur as he confronts his family's past. Nearing the battlefields, trauma and guilt cast shadows, drawing onlookers eager for revelation.
For readers of literary historical fiction, this novel explores themes of national identity, sacrifice, and the invisible wounds of war. Will the team make it to the finish line, or will the past claim them first?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Based on a true event, New Zealand author Coventry's tense, dark debut novel is a powerful story of grim determination and one man's forlorn hope to conquer fear and pain in the world's most grueling bicycle race, the Tour de France. The unnamed narrator is an anonymous member of the 1928 Australian-New Zealand Ravat-Wonder cycling team, the first English-speaking peloton to race in the Tour de France. They are foreigners in a foreign land, facing 5,476 km of bad roads, mountains, cold, heat, illness, and injury. The narrator is 27 years old, a young man adrift amidst the ghosts of post-World War I Europe, questioning his purpose and abilities, searching but never finding any answers. Like his teammates, he is driven to compete, knowing he cannot win, just hoping to finish the race's last invisible mile. His voice is thoughtful and introspective as he tells of his doubts and fears, forcing his mind and body to endure extreme fatigue, hunger, thirst, sickness, and injury. Celia, a race fan who follows the race in a car and befriends the cyclist, is just as adrift as he is. Best are Coventry's vivid descriptions of cycling team tactics, the drugs and alcohol, the excitement of the watching crowds, and the bloody accidents and crashes of the 162 cyclists that began the race, only 42 finished.
