Synopses & Reviews
Readers of rigorous, visionary literary fiction including works by Borges, Bolaño, Calvino, Cortázar, Auster, and Eco will be drawn to this sophisticated and spellbinding debut novel: part murder mystery, part exploration of the rare-book world, and a transcendent Gothic masterpiece.
When Daniel invites his oldest friend Gustavo to visit, Gustavo is ambivalent. They haven't spoken for three years, since Daniel was convicted of murdering his fiancée and sentenced to spend his life in a mental asylum. Daniel offers to reveal the truth of what really happened, and Gustavo's curiosity brings him into the center of a quixotic and lethal investigation.
In a South-American coastal city, Daniel and his younger sister, Sophia, were raised in an aristocratic family blocks away from Gustavo's middle class home. Diligent and erudite, Daniel became one of the most successful rare-book dealers in the city, while Gustavo became a renowned psycho-linguist. Their reunion at the asylum charges Gustavo with a new sense of fraternal duty and compels him to examine the circumstances of Daniels crime. But because of a lack of privacy inside the ward, Daniel must convey his story covertly he transmits to Gustavo fragments of stories, novels and histories, rare and well-known. From the tragedy of Daniels afflicted sisters disappearance from a state hospital, to the subterfuge of the inner circle of rare-book and antique collectors, an increasingly skeptical Gustavo is challenged to extrapolate a complex series of events from allegories that are more real than police reports, and metaphors more revealing than evidence. But when a woman in the asylum is found murdered forced to suffocate on pages of old books Daniel is declared the prime suspect and Gustavo plummets deeper into the mysterious case.
Intellectually exhilarating and profoundly complex, Gustavo Faverón Patriau has crafted an incisive inquiry into the enigma of human suffering, the search for solidarity, and the limitless bounds of corruption. The Antiquarian is a high-minded, enthralling thriller that is as entertaining as it is erudite, dark as it is illuminating. It is a tale of friendship and fraternity, a love affair between a man and three women, and a study of hearts: wounded, captured, and magical.
Review
"Delightfully macabre....A novel in which storytelling can prove redemptive, but it can also kill....The Antiquarian is steeped in alienation, shame, mourning and disgust. It is intelligently conceived and well executed. Rather than serve up a tantalizing mystery with a tidy resolution, this book does the opposite, demolishing the facts and assumptions amassed along the way. It has hundreds of intricate pieces. Once you finish reading, you may feel compelled to take it apart, figure out how it works and begin again." New York Times
Review
"A masterful debut in which a Peruvian literary critic and scholar crafts a metamystery that explores identity, deceit, guilt and narrative....Rarely does a literary mystery work on as many levels as this." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Review
"At once heartbreaking and redemptive...[The Antiquarian] illuminates a deep interconnection between horror and love." Booklist (starred review)
Synopsis
A
Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
A Best Book of the Summer: Los Angeles Times and Publishers Weekly
An Amazon Best Book of the Month (Mystery, Thriller and Suspense)
Three years have passed since Gustavo, a renowned psycholinguist, last spoke to his closest friend, Daniel, who has been interned in a psychiatric ward for murdering his fiancée. When Daniel unexpectedly calls to confess the truth behind the crime, Gustavo's long buried fraternal loyalty resurfaces and draws him into the center of a quixotic investigation.
While Daniel reveals his unsettling story using fragments of fables, novels, and historical allusions, Gustavo begins to retrace the past for clues: from their early college days exploring dust-filled libraries and exotic brothels to Daniels intimate attachment to his sickly younger sister and his dealings as a book collector. As the circumstances grow increasingly intricate, Gustavo is forced to deduce an sinister series of events from allegories that are more real than police reports and metaphors more revealing than evidence.
With sumptuous prose and haunting imagery, Faverón Patriau has crafted an unforgettable, labyrinthine tale of murder, madness, and passion that is as entertaining as it is erudite and dark as it is illuminating.
About the Author
Gustavo Faverón Patriau is a professor at Bowdoin College with a masters and PhD from Cornell and a BA from Universidad Católica del Perú. He has also taught at Stanford and Middlebury and edited anthologies in Spanish on politics and Roberto Bolaño, worked as a journalist and editor; Spanish newspaper ABC called his blog on literature "the most influential of Hispanic America." He was born in Lima, Peru, in 1966, and lives in Maine. Blog: gustavofaveron.blogspot.com; Twitter: @gfaveron
Joseph Mulligan is a writer and translator. He has translated major works by César Vallejo, Pierre Joris, Oliverio Girondo, Alejandra Pizarnik, and Jorge Eduardo Eielson. He currently lives in New Paltz, NY and works at a translation agency in New York City.