TYPORAMA
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By Víctor del Árbol | Translated by Lisa Dillman
Other Press Paperback Original | May 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63542-995-4 | Price: $18.99
"Assured prose….a meditation on family, circumstance, and violence,
both political and personal"—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“A dark, vividly descriptive tale of two complicated people whose troubled pasts motivate a road trip full of winding turns, unexpected plot twists, and retribution. Adeptly plotted, an examination of our own pasts, of what we cannot change about them, and what we do with the time we have left.”—John McMahon, Edgar Award–nominated author
of The Good Detective
“Above the Rain is a heartrending tour de force about mortality and chance and learning to live with ghosts. Rich with noir atmosphere, the book begins in 1950s Morocco and then brings us to contemporary Spain and Sweden. A sprawling ensemble cast drives the narrative, making for an epic unknotting of voices and experiences. It’s expertly plotted, suspenseful, and immersive. Lisa Dillman’s translation is crisp and elegant.
Just extraordinary.”—William Boyle, author of Gravesend and City of Margins
“Haunting and provocative, Above the Rain is a novel of devastating, heartbreaking beauty. It demands your bravery, fires your imagination, and challenges your heart and soul. The rewards are rich.
I will carry Miguel and Helena with me for a very long time.”—Bill Loehfelm, author of the Maureen Coughlin series
“A sweeping and devastating historical novel, full of suspense, Above the Rain is a masterclass in the way that trauma is reinforced and repeated throughout generations, with deadly consequences. In Del Árbol’s
noir-inflected masterpiece, the past is always present, the political is always personal, and love, however fleeting, is the only redeeming grace.
I loved every moment of it.”—Halley Sutton, author of The Lady Upstairs
ABOVE THE RAIN weaves two seemingly disparate narratives: an ill-fated road trip across Europe that begins in a Spanish nursing home, and a young woman fighting to survive in the criminal underbelly of Sweden. Delicately unspooling threads of past and present, Del Arbol reconstructs the history of violence that links them.
In their nursing home in Cadiz, Helena and Miguel form an unlikely friendship, both bored with the monotonous days and troubled by the many unresolved pieces of their lives. Helena is still haunted by the man who destroyed her family sixty years ago. Miguel, living with the ghosts of his father and his wife, is terrified that his mind is failing him. The sudden suicide of another resident forces them to reconsider what they can still become. Rejecting the home, the pair depart for the journey of their lives to finally face their dark pasts, and soon learn how much they're willing to risk to find answers.
In Sweden, Yasmina, the daughter of Moroccan immigrants, is beholden to Sture, the biggest drug trafficker in the country. She’s ordered to seduce the Deputy Commissioner, an older man who’s investigating a series of grisly murders. Trapped between increasing pressure from Sture, and life at home with her authoritarian, abusive grandfather, Yasmina plots her escape.
More than a work of suspense or literary fiction, ABOVE THE RAIN examines the nature of evil, asking how those who act from within the depths of human cruelty might justify themselves, or what motivates the few who are willing to fight them. Del Árbol challenges us to question what justice looks like, and the destruction that can come from seeking it. And in its unflinching portrayal of aging and disease, ABOVE THE RAIN is a searing indictment against a world that views the elderly as a burden and a society that puts expiration dates on people's relevance or potential.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND TRANSLATOR:
About the Author: Víctor del Árbol was born in Barcelona in 1968 and was an officer of the Catalan police force from 1992 to 2012. As the recipient of the Nadal Prize, the Tiflos Prize, and as the first Spanish author to win the Prix du Polar Européen, he has distinguished himself as a prominent voice in Spanish literature. His novel A Million Drops (Other Press, 2018) was named a Notable Book of the Year by the Washington Post.
About the Translator: Lisa Dillman teaches in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She has translated a number of Spanish and Latin American writers. Some of her recent translations include Rain Over Madrid; August, October; and Death of a Horse, by Andrés Barba, and Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera.
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ReplyDeleteNice post. Sounds interesting.
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Yes...it does sound interesting.
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