Synopses & Reviews
The Convalescent is the story of a small, bearded man selling meat out of a bus parked next to a stream in suburban Virginia... and also, somehow, the story of 10,000 years of Hungarian history. Jessica Anthony, the inaugural winner of the Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, makes an unforgettable debut with an unforgettable hero: Rovar Ákos Pfliegman unlikely bandit, unloved lover, and historian of the unimportant.
Review
"Jessica Anthony is a writer possessed of mind-bending talents.
Inconceivably, she's written a novel that's innocent and wise, grave and
hilarious, bleak and hopeful, fast-paced and meditative, heartbreaking and heart healthy, evanescent and concrete. Reading it, I felt as though I'd stumbled upon a magical text that might, at any moment, disappear from my hands. The Convalescent is that kind of special." Heidi Julavits
Review
"Jessica Anthony has given a voice wry, sad, and arresting to the wounded
little homunculus that lives, largely ignored, in all of us, a creature that
wrestles with a guilt and grief that is as historical as it is personal. The
Convalescent is a melancholy delight." Chris Adrian
Review
"The Convalescent is a fleshy fable spinning in and out of its own enormous,
fabulous history. It is lush, cranky, and powered by dark, sweet humor.
Mesmerizing. And a lot of fun. I enjoyed it completely." Katherine Dunn
Review
"A blissfully nutty, brainy, ribald, brilliantly imaginative ode to human loneliness, oddity, and persistence" Francisco Goldman
Synopsis
Anthony, the inaugural winner of the Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, makes an unforgettable debut with an unforgettable hero: Seymour Akos Pfliegman--unlikely bandit, unloved lover, and historian of the unimportant.