Staff Pick
A grade Z creep show with a shock art chaser, Roque Larraquy's debut is a maniacal riff in the Grand Guignol tradition. Amorous doctors run amok in a Buenos Aires sanatorium at the turn of the 20th century, where they brood, indulge their cigarette habits, and conspire to inflict gruesome experiments on unsuspecting patients with nauseating results. Comemadre is an unscrupulous, farcical, and gleefully confounding experience at every turn. I loved this book. Recommended By Justin W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
In the outskirts of Buenos Aires in 1907, a doctor becomes involved in a misguided experiment that investigates the threshold between life and death. One hundred years later, a celebrated artist goes to extremes in search of aesthetic transformation, turning himself into an art object. How far are we willing to go, Larraquy asks, in pursuit of transcendence? The world of Comemadre is full of vulgarity, excess, and discomfort: strange ants that form almost perfect circles, missing body parts, obsessive love affairs, and man-eating plants. Darkly funny, smart, and engrossing, here the monstrous is not alien, but the consquence of our relentless pursuit of collective and personal progress.
Synopsis
LITERARY LATIN AMERICAN
FLATLINERS: A SMART, ENGROSSING, AND DARKLY FUNNY NOVEL EXPERIMENTING WITH WHERE LIFE AND LOVE BEGIN AND END.
On the outskirts of Buenos Aires in 1907, Doctor Quintana pines for head nurse Men ndez while he and his colleagues embark on a grisly series of experiments to investigate the line between life and death. One hundred years later, a celebrated artist goes to extremes in search of aesthetic transformation, turning himself into an art object. How far are we willing to go, Larraquy asks, in pursuit of transcendence? The world of Comemadre is full of vulgarity, excess, and farce: strange ants that form almost perfect circles, missing body parts, obsessive love affairs, and flesh-eating plants. Here the monstrous is not alien, but the consequence of our relentless pursuit of collective and personal progress.
Synopsis
Literary Latin American FLATLINERS: a smart, engrossing, and darkly funny novel experimenting with where life and love begin and end.