
Personae |
Book Category:
Fiction > General
|
Author:
Sergio De La Pava
|
ISBN 13:
9780226078991
|
Price:
USD 17.00
|
Publication Year:
2013
|
Publisher Info
University of Chicago Press. InquirySergio De La Pavaa€s A Naked Singularity was one of the most highly praised debut novels in decades. The Wall Street Journal called it u201ca propulsive, mind-bending experience,u201d and named it one of the ten best books of the year. The Toronto Star did the same, calling it u201ca great American novel: large, ambitious, and full of talk.u201d In Slate, Paul Ford proclaimed,u201cIta€s a fine thing for an author to bring forth something so unapologetically maximalist.u201d A This book is nothing like that one. Just look at it: A Naked Singularity was a brick of a book, 678 pages, and this onea€s slim--lean and focused. A Naked Singularity locked us into the unforgettable voice of its protagonist, Casi, while Personae shimmers and shifts among different perspectives, locations, and narrative techniques. But sharp readers will quickly see that the two books are the work of the same hand. The sheer energy of De La Pavaa€s sentences, his eye for absurd humor, his commitment to the idea of justice--all will be familiar here as they carry us from the tale of an obsessive, damaged psychic detective consumed by a murder case, into a Sartrean drama that raises questions (and jokes) about responsibility, fate, death, and more. And when De La Pava eventually returns us to the investigation, this time seen from the other side, the lives and deaths bound up in it feel all the more real, and moving, even as solid answers slip away into mist. Shelf Awareness declared that A Naked Singularity "heralded the arrival of a tremendous talent." In some ways, despite its brevity, Personae is even more surprising and challenging--and, in its ambition and fierce intelligence, ita€s proof that Sergio De La Pava is here to stay.
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