The Convalescent
Jul 2010 · Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
star
1 review
Ebook
257
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
About this ebook
"One of the most amusing and poignant anti-heroes since Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum" lives up to his misfit heritage in this ribald debut ( Spike Magazine).
Ask Rovar Ákos Pfliegman about himself and he'll say: "I have no life. I have no known relatives, no known friends. I'm barely human. I'm a hairy little Hungarian pulp. I am a sorry gathering of organs. That is all." But there is more to Rovar than meets the eye. He has a pet beetle named Mrs. Kipner, he is a butcher plagued by rare ailments, he sells meat out of a broken-down bus next to a river in suburban Virginia, and he is the last of the Pfliegman line, a not-too-bright pagan clan that reaches back to pre-medieval Hungary. He also believes he'll fulfill the ignoble destiny of inbred self-destruction that has wiped out all Pfliegmans before him. But against all odds, and the cruel laws of nature, this unlikely loner, seller of fresh mutton at unbeatable prices, unloved lover, and historian of the unimportant is still capable of being reborn in the most extraordinary way.
"Innocent and wise, grave and hilarious, bleak and hopeful, fast-paced and meditative, heartbreaking and heart healthy, evanescent and concrete" (Heidi Julavits), The Convalescent "nods to all sorts of greats—Kafka, Rushdie, Darwin and Grass, to name a few. But Anthony's style—funny, immediate and unapologetically cerebral—carves out a space all its own" ( Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Ask Rovar Ákos Pfliegman about himself and he'll say: "I have no life. I have no known relatives, no known friends. I'm barely human. I'm a hairy little Hungarian pulp. I am a sorry gathering of organs. That is all." But there is more to Rovar than meets the eye. He has a pet beetle named Mrs. Kipner, he is a butcher plagued by rare ailments, he sells meat out of a broken-down bus next to a river in suburban Virginia, and he is the last of the Pfliegman line, a not-too-bright pagan clan that reaches back to pre-medieval Hungary. He also believes he'll fulfill the ignoble destiny of inbred self-destruction that has wiped out all Pfliegmans before him. But against all odds, and the cruel laws of nature, this unlikely loner, seller of fresh mutton at unbeatable prices, unloved lover, and historian of the unimportant is still capable of being reborn in the most extraordinary way.
"Innocent and wise, grave and hilarious, bleak and hopeful, fast-paced and meditative, heartbreaking and heart healthy, evanescent and concrete" (Heidi Julavits), The Convalescent "nods to all sorts of greats—Kafka, Rushdie, Darwin and Grass, to name a few. But Anthony's style—funny, immediate and unapologetically cerebral—carves out a space all its own" ( Publishers Weekly, starred review).
"One of the most amusing and poignant anti-heroes since Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum" lives up to his misfit heritage in this ribald debut ( Spike Magazine).
Ask Rovar Ákos Pfliegman about himself and he'll say: "I have no life. I have no known relatives, no known friends. I'm barely human. I'm ...
Discover more
Ratings and reviews
1 review
About the author
Jessica Anthony was born in Upstate New York, in a small agricultural community sandwiched between a Native American reservation and a cutlery factory. This has shaped her worldview. Since, she has traveled to over twenty countries, lived twice in Eastern Europe, and worked as a meat-cutter, an obituary writer, a singing telegram gal, and a college professor. Her fiction has appeared in Best New American Voices, Best American Nonrequired Reading, McSweeney's, Mid-American Review, New American Writing and elsewhere. She is the winner of the "Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award," the Summer Literary Seminars fiction contest to St. Petersburg, Russia, and has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, the Millay Colony, the Ucross Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Jessica Anthony was born in Upstate New York, in a small agricultural community sandwiched between a Native American reservation and a cutlery factory. This has shaped her worldview. Since, she has traveled to over twenty countries, lived twice in Eastern Europe, and worked as a meat-cutter, an o...
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
