Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
From the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Harvest, Quarantine, and Being Dead, a tender new novel about music and lost love by the Mediterranean Sea. Aside from his trusty piano, Alfred Busi lives alone in his villa overlooking the waves. The famous singer occasionally performs the classics in small venues around town--never in the stadiums of his younger days--and since the death of his wife two years ago he hasn't felt inspired to write new songs. His existence is a quiet one now, but on his lunchtime outings to the trendy neighborhoods some people still recognize their town's living legend, and very soon there will be a ceremony revealing his bust on the Avenue of Fame. On the night before his induction, Busi hears rustling among the garbage bins outside--not unusual, with the scrubby woodlands at his doorstep. When he goes downstairs to clear the scavengers away, he is attacked by...something: not quite an animal, not quite a man, innocent like a child and definitely untamed by civilization.
The attack sets off a chain of events that will cast a shadow on Busi's career, imperil his home, and alter the fabric of his town. In his hour of need Busi calls on his wife's sister, the beautiful, elegant Terina, with whom he has a complicated past. At the next day's proceedings the bandaged Busi is a prime target for Sobriquet, the town's notorious tabloid columnist, who turns the strange attack into an expose on the town's poor who grow bolder by the day in their transgressions against upstanding citizens like Busi. In this campaign against the indigent Sobriquet finds a willing ally in Joseph, Terina's son, a brash, wealthy property developer who has long had his eye on Busi's family villa. And Busi himself must finally come to terms with his wife's death, and decide whether or not to sing one last time.
In trademark crystalline prose, Crace portrays a man taking stock of his life and looking into an uncertain future, all while bearing witness to a community in the throes of great change--with echoes of today's most pressing social questions.
Synopsis
Alfred Busi lives alone in his villa overlooking the waves. Famed in his tiny Mediterranean town for his music, he is mourning the recent death of his wife and quietly living out his days. Then one night, Busi is viciously attacked by an intruder in his own courtyard--bitten and scratched. He insists his assailant was neither man nor animal.
Soon, Busi's account of what happened is being embellished to fan the flames of old rumor--of an ancient race of people living in the surrounding forest. It is also used to spark new controversy, inspiring claims that something must finally be done about the town's poor, whose numbers have been growing.
In trademark crystalline prose, Jim Crace portrays a man taking stock of his life and looking into an uncertain future, while bearing witness to a community in the throes of great change.