Fernando A. Flores

Gebundenes Buch

Brother Brontë

A Novel

Beschreibung

One of Kirkus' Best of Fiction 2025. Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2025 by the Los Angeles Times, Town & Country, and Alta.

"Flores's style has an exhilarating punk, D.I.Y. aplomb; it's as if he feels he's inventing literature for the first time." -Mark Leyner, The New York Times Book Review

"Flores's fiction possesses the aspect of a dream." -David L. Ulin, The Atlantic

"This crazy, cakey world-making of Fernando A. Flores is all of literature: wide, plaintive, melancholy, and full of feminist fellow joyousness and ways . . . Hated this world ending. I want more." -Eileen Myles

Two women fight to save their dystopian border town-and literature-in this gonzo near-future adventure.

The year is 2038, and the formerly bustling town of Three Rivers, Texas, is a surreal wasteland. Under the authoritarian thumb of its tech industrialist mayor, Pablo Henry Crick, the town has outlawed reading and forced most of its mothers to work as indenturedlaborers at the Big Tex Fish Cannery, which poisons the atmosphere and lines Crick's pockets.

Scraping by in this godforsaken landscape are best friends Proserpina and Neftalí. One of Three Rivers' last literate citizens, Neftalí hides and reads the books of the mysterious renegade author Jazzmin Monelle Rivas, whose last novel, Brother Brontë, is finally in Neftalí's possession. But after a series of increasingly violent atrocities committed by Crick's forces, Neftalí and Proserpina, with the help of a wounded Bengal tigress, three scheming triplets, and an underground network of rebel tías, rise up to reclaim their city-and in the process, unlock Rivas's connection to Three Rivers itself.

An adventure that only the acclaimed Fernando A. Flores could dream up, Brother Brontë is a mordant, gonzo romp through a ruined world that, in its dysfunction, tyranny, and disparity, feels uncannily like our own. With his most ambitious book yet, Flores once again bends what fiction can do, in the process crafting a moving and unforgettable story of perseverance.

Autor

Fernando A. Flores

Produktdetails

• Verlag: MCD / Macmillan US
• Artikelnr. des Verlages: 900248371
• Seitenzahl: 337
• Erscheinungstermin: 11. Februar 2025
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 217mm x 141mm x 32mm
• Gewicht: 447g
• ISBN-13: 9780374604165
• ISBN-10: 0374604169
• Artikelnr.: 70525229

Rezensionen

"An absolute blast to read. Its madcap, carnivalesque backdrop is rendered in psychedelic polychromatics . . . Flores's style has an exhilarating punk, D.I.Y. aplomb; it's as if he feels he's inventing literature for the first time here, with all the lordly de haut en bas of an autodidact . . . This is not a book for the abstemious reader. It's an all-you-can-eat buffet of sumptuous language to gorge on . . . Of course, the criminalization of book possession, the notion of reading as taboo, as transgression, would make almost any text that much more titillating. But I must say, from my subterranean lair, hidden from the drones of the chupacabras, that I haven't read a novel so rambunctiously lyrical and as gloriously evangelical about

literature in a long time. Bravo to Brother Brontë himself, Fernando A. Flores." -Mark Leyner, The New York Times Book Review

"Flores's fiction possesses the aspect of a dream. In the imaginative geography of the novel, the border region becomes not one but many overlapping environments, in which a variety of meanings accrue . . . Borders, by their nature, are elusive, a set of shifting lines on a map that tell us nothing about who lives on either side. In that sense, what else can this border be if not a laboratory for fusion: individual, collective, national, international? Brother Brontë is a novel that seeks to refashion it all." -David L. Ulin, The Atlantic

"[Brother Brontë] is a rendering of existence as trauma and existence as resistance . . . Flores presents us with a new Wild West of the near-future, one rooted in the conditions of now, where life in Texas is no less fraught, and intellectual and individual freedoms are the new land grab. There is heartache and hope in this read of authoritarian and environmental suffocation: when protests feel futile and elections fail us and screams seem to land in a void, all we have left is our daily service to ourselves and one another." -Madison Ford, The Brooklyn Rail

"This contemporary twist on Fahrenheit 451 exudes a morbid sense of humor . . . Lone Star dystopia with an insistent plea for the importance of reading." -Chris Vognar, Los Angeles Times

"[Brother Brontë is] a book about writers and their writing persevering in hostile territory. It's about unearthing the truths that may have been lost . . . Novels like "Brother Brontë" highlight the importance of making sure we get the future right." -Adriana E. Ramírez, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"[Flores'] prose is evocative, electric, and wildly original . . . This is a wild ride of a novel, and a fascinating look at a future that, sadly, seems frighteningly plausible. A stunning tale of survival and a biting critique of book bans and late capitalism." -Kirkus (starred review)

"A mind-bending novel . . . While invoking the Brontës, Flores' surreal tale wanders in a Rabelaisian manner . . . Flores takes readers on a wild ride!" -Booklist (starred review)

"Fernando A. Flores is a supremely confident writer, the type of writer who throws you into a situation with no explanation and expects you to keep up. Brother Brontë honestly feels like being in the middle of a Bosch painting-lots to look at, all chaos, but incredibly beautiful and carefully crafted . . . There are plenty of 1984-esque stories out there but this is by far the most exciting and thought-provoking one." -Christina Orlando, Reactor

"A vivid phantasmagoria of resistance . . . There's fun to be had in this literary adventure." -Publishers Weekly

"Flores . . . crafts bizarre set pieces that are as wonderful to read as they are difficult to categorize." -LitHub

"This book is lasagna, Samuel Delany lasagna. This crazy cakey world-making of Fernando A. Flores is all of literature, wide, plaintive, melancholy and full of feminist fellow joyousness and ways. It is totally Brother Brontë, a cool poetic guy eye towards a future protected only by the strength of friendships, mainly female, innovation, and the power of lusty youth or truth, both I think. Hated this world ending, I want more." -Eileen Myles

"The trick with dystopia is to leave room for light, and lightness; in our real world, tragedy and comedy are braided together. Fernando A. Flores gets this: his imagination ranges from the grimmest realities, of blood and fire and life made small, all the way through to breathtaking hope, and surprise, and solidarity. Brother Brontë evokes Octavia Butler, William Gibson, and John Steinbeck; these are all my favorites, and with this book, Fernando A. Flores joins the list." -Robin Sloan, author of Moonbound

"We fans of Fernando Flores's work have long admired his virtuoso word play, his wizardly conjuring of images, and the power of his Texas borderlands vision and voice. Brother Brontë is his wildest and bravest work yet." -Héctor Tobar, author of Our Migrant Souls

"Deliciously odd, funny and affecting, Brother Brontë delights at every turn-of which there are a glorious many. A puzzle where each piece not only helps complete the picture but expands its margins, I cherished every character, every story, and (again) fell in love with Fernando A. Flores's profound empathy and wild imagination. Brother Brontë is a gorgeously bonkers joyride." -Gerardo Sámano Córdova, author of Monstrilio

"With nods to Fahrenheit 451 and The Grapes of Wrath, Flores's Brother Brontë carves out a space for itself in the landscape of post-collapse literature-and one which it fills with as much human warmth and vibrant poetry as it does righteous anger and dystopian sadness. A visceral journey through a uniquely American future, and an essential read." -Tim Maughan, author of Infinite Detail

"In rich, exciting prose, Flores takes the reader on a wild and frightening adventure, roving narrative territories left completely unexplored by other recent U.S. writing, territories bordered in the far distance by the fantastic realms of Latin American and Eastern European greats. Sardonic, disturbing, and thoroughly pleasurable, Brother Brontë feels like nothing so much as a profoundly generous gift." -Jennifer Croft, author of The Extinction of Irena Rey