Brickmakers
Selva Almada author Annie McDermott translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Charco Press
Published:2nd Nov '21
Should be back in stock very soon
Author of International Booker Finalist Not a River
Two young men, Pájaro Tamai and Marciano Miranda, are dying in a deserted amusement park. The story begins almost at its end, just after the two main characters have faced off in a knife fight: the culmination of a rivalry that has pitted them against one another since childhood. The present in Brickmakers is a state of impending death, at moments marked by dream-like visions: Marciano is visited by the ghost of his father, who was murdered when he was a teenager, a father he had sworn to avenge, in a promise he could not keep. Pájaro is also visited, in a recurring nightmare, by his abusive father who disappeared years earlier.
Narrated with fury and passion, reminiscent of William Faulkner or Katherine Anne Porter, Brickmakers is a rural tragedy in the great American tradition, a story of love, honour and violence where everything is at stake. Reprising the powerful imagery and the filmic landscape of The Wind That Lays Waste, and the threatening atmosphere of Dead Girls, Brickmakers is yet another proof of Almada’s extraordinary talent.
Lambda Literary Awards (Finalist)
"A successful riff on a classic Shakespearean tale." —Publishers Weekly
"Such is Almada’s command of shape and pace, and the clean-edged vigour of the style McDermott voices with such skill, that we take Brickmakers on its own uncompromising terms – as pulp, tragedy and epic all at once." —The Arts Desk
"Almada is forceful in her depictions of sex, violence, and rage. I feel her prose in my body: a punch in the gut, the sharpness of glass. McDermott’s translation captures the bite of Almada’s sentences, which render both tenderness and violence with devastating clarity." —Chicago Review of Books
"Almada's breathtaking multigenerational tragedy is a haunting, unforgettable examination of the lasting consequences of careless inhumanity." —Shelf Awareness, starred review
"Best books of 2021" —The Financial Times
"There is a tremendous carnality to Almada’s writing, vividly captured in McDermott’s translation" —LA Review of Books
"A rich, confident and urgent read." —Lunate
"Brickmakers is one of the best books I've read this year ... It’s a brilliant, sizzling, unmissable treat" —Translating Women
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Praise for Selva Almada
ISBN: 9781913867065
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
197 pages