Staff Pick
Selva Almada has written a dust-blown parable as lean and affecting as anything this side of Flannery O'Connor. Steeped in the competing ideologies of two headstrong fathers, The Wind That Lays Waste offers insightful meditations on faith, compassion, autonomy, and loss. A spare novel that hits with all the penetrating force of a lightning strike. Recommended By Justin W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
A taut, lyrical portrait of four people thrown together on a single day in rural Argentina.
The Wind That Lays Waste begins in the great pause before a storm. Reverend Pearson is evangelizing across the Argentinian countryside with Leni, his teenage daughter, when their car breaks down. This act of God or fate leads them to the workshop and home of an aging mechanic called Gringo Brauer and a young boy named Tapioca.
As a long day passes, curiosity and intrigue transform into an unexpected intimacy between four people: one man who believes deeply in God, morality, and his own righteousness, and another whose life experiences have only entrenched his moral relativism and mild apathy; a quietly earnest and idealistic mechanic’s assistant, and a restless, skeptical preacher’s daughter. As tensions between these characters ebb and flow, beliefs are questioned and allegiances are tested, until finally the growing storm breaks over the plains.
Selva Almada’s exquisitely crafted debut, with its limpid and confident prose, is profound and poetic, a tactile experience of the mountain, the sun, the squat trees, the broken cars, the sweat-stained shirts, and the destroyed lives. The Wind That Lays Waste is a philosophical, beautiful, and powerfully distinctive novel that marks the arrival in English of an author whose talent and poise are undeniable.
Review
"A dynamic introduction to a major Latin American literary force."
Shelf Awareness (Starred Review)
Review
"[The Wind That Lays Waste is] fueled by alcohol, religious symbolism, and doubt....The story packs a punch in its portraits of
a man who exalts heaven and another who protests."
Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Capturing the soul of rural South
America, a place of longstanding truths and pivotal conversions....[Almada's] been billed as a 'promising
voice' in Latin American literature, and this tale delivers readily on
that promise."
Booklist
Review
"The drama of this
refreshingly unpredictable debut...smolders like a lit fuse waiting
to touch off its well-orchestrated events....A stimulating, heady
story."
Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Selva Almada was born in Entre Ríos, Argentina, in 1973. She has been a finalist for the Rodolfo Walsh and Tigre Juan prizes, and is considered one of the most potent and promising literary voices in Argentina and Latin America.
Chris Andrews teaches at the University of Western Sydney. He has translated books of fiction by Latin American authors, including Roberto Bolaño’s Distant Star, César Aira’s The Musical Brain and Other Stories, and Rodrigo Rey Rosa’s Severina.