A House at the Edge of Tears |
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Author:
| Khoury-Ghata, Vénus |
Translator:
| Hacker, Marilyn |
ISBN: | 978-1-55597-434-3 |
Publication Date: | Nov 2005 |
Publisher: | Graywolf Press
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Book Format: | Paperback |
List Price: | USD $12.00 |
Book Description:
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In the city of Beirut, five shabby dwellings circle a courtyard with a pomegranate tree weeping blood red fruit. The residents hear screams in the night as a boy is tossed out into the street by his father--a punishment for masturbating in his sleep. A crime not worthy of the punishment: the neighbors gossip and decide that he must have tried to rape his sisters. "Small-boned with long, silky lashes, no one but the devil could camouflage evil so seductively." The poems he writes are...
More Description
In the city of Beirut, five shabby dwellings circle a courtyard with a pomegranate tree weeping blood red fruit. The residents hear screams in the night as a boy is tossed out into the street by his father--a punishment for masturbating in his sleep. A crime not worthy of the punishment: the neighbors gossip and decide that he must have tried to rape his sisters. "Small-boned with long, silky lashes, no one but the devil could camouflage evil so seductively." The poems he writes are perhapsan even greater crime to his father, but ultimately a gift to his eldest sister, who narrates their story with a combination of brutal truth and stunning prose. As her brother becomes more and more lost to his family and to himself, we also learn of a Contessa who teaches tango, a family who spends every Sunday in search of buried treasure, and the miracle of a weeping Madonna statue that cries when human tears run dry.
In the harrowing and mesmerizing novelA House at the Edge of Tears, celebrated novelist and poet, Khoury-Ghata, presents the disintegration of a family and a country--both ruled by a fury fueled by fear.