The Convalescent is the story of a small, bearded man selling meat out of a bus parked next to a stream in suburban Virginia . . . and also, somehow, the story of ten thousand years of Hungarian history. Jessica Anthony, the inaugural winner of the Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, makes an unforgettable debut with an unforgettable hero: Rovar Ákos Pfliegmanunlikely bandit, unloved lover, and historian of the unimportant.
On the one hand, fantastic. In the literal and lateral definitions of the word. Mythmaking on a Vonnegut scale, meaning squirrelly and capricious and where the bizarre alt-history of the world actually seems a heap more likely than the histories we’re given. On the other hand, the ending lost me completely. Had it stuck the landing and not just written Kafka on post-it notes, I’d be singing more praises right now. 3.675 stars.
Reading updates
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10 September, 2012:
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10 September, 2012:
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