Bibliograph

On the edge, Rafael Chirbes ; translated by Margaret Jull Costa

Type

Label

On the edge, Rafael Chirbes ; translated by Margaret Jull Costa

Language

eng

Index

no index present

Literary Form

fiction

Main title

On the edge

Oclc number

911364368

Responsibility statement

Rafael Chirbes ; translated by Margaret Jull Costa

Summary

Midway through this novel, narrator Esteban says, “It<U+2019>s all hot air.” He<U+2019>s talking about Internet sex chat rooms, but the phrase could also be deployed for the tone of the book<U+2014>hot, angry, sweaty<U+2014>which unfurls over nearly 500 pages. Chirbes, who passed away in August 2015, is one of Spain<U+2019>s premier writers, and he is at his best when fully immersed, as he is in this novel, in the enormous economic fallout of Spain<U+2019>s recession. The book loosely follows Esteban, who has been forced to close his carpentry shop due to a lack of business, and leaps between his feelings of failure and monologues in which he lashes out at his father, a former political dissident (and, it seems, a generally bad father) who is now in the care of his son due to his vegetative state<U+2014>which Esteban describes as looking like “shop-window mannequin.” --Publisher's Weekly

Target audience

adult

Classification