Twenty After Midnight

Twenty After Midnight

von Daniel Galera

A Novel

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Taschenbuch224 Seiten
196 mm x 128 mm
Sprache: English
2020, Penguin Random House; Penguin Books

ISBN: 978-0-7352-2479-7

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"[Galera] writes with a heady, voracious energy captured in robust prose by Sanches. Masterfully picking away at the impotence and disappointments of this aging band of literary provocateurs, Galera presents a vision of failed promise of a generation and country." The New York Times Book Review

Like a well-made song in a minor key, Galera darkens his narrative with an honesty that feels cleansing. . . . [A] vibrant tale of a generation in crisis. Kirkus, starred review
 
"Galera s thoughtful, bittersweet novel tackles the ephemeral nature of friendship... a nuanced, complex portrait of millennial anxiety and anomie.   Publishers Weekly


A dark and masterful portrait of a generation in crisis, from one of the most exciting young voices in international literature

The world had been theirs in the late 90s: they were the young provocateurs behind a countercultural scene, digital bohemians creating a new future. But fifteen years later, Duke, the leader and undisputed genius of their group, has been murdered, and the three remaining members of their circle reunite to piece together what became of their lives and how they fell so short of their expectations.

Now in their thirties, Aurora, Antero, and Emiliano have succumbed to the pressures of adulthood, the exigencies of carving out a life in a country that is fraying at the seams. Reunited after years of long-held grudges and painful crushes, the three try to resurrect the spirit of the all-night parties and early morning trysts, the protests and pornography of their youths. Lurking over them, as they puzzle out their fates, is the question of whether or not there is a future for them to believe in, or if the end has already arrived.

Twenty After Midnight is a portrait of the first generation of the digital age, a group that was promised everything but handed a fractured world. Daniel Galera has written a pre-apocalyptic tale of millennial longings.


My sudden urge to accelerate the world's destruction was connected in a way to the human shit stinking up the sidewalks and the fumes wafting from the slime pooled around the city's dumpsters, to the bus strike and the widespread despair over the late January heat smothering Porto Alegre, but, if there was a before and an after, a line that separated the life I thought I'd have from the life I ended up having, this line was the news of Andrei's death the night before, when he was robbed at gunpoint near Hospital de Cl nicas, just a few blocks from the Ramiro Barcelos neighborhood where I was walking. I had stopped so abruptly while trying to process that piece of information on my Twitter feed that my right foot, wet with sweat, had slipped in its sandal and my ankle had twisted, sending me crashing onto the hot sidewalk, my left arm jutting ridiculously into the air to protect my phone.

Near the site of my fall, a homeless woman rummaged through a dumpster, doubled over its edge like an ostrich with its head buried in the sand, black legs and bare feet poking out from her pink pleated dress. Hearing me groan, she slipped out of the container's mouth, lowered its lid, and walked toward me. I was already propped up on one of my knees, adjusting the strap on my sandal, when she asked if I was all right and offered to help. Only then did I notice that she was a cross-dresser with fine, curly hair covering her thighs and sculpted arms. I said I was all right, thank you, I just needed to sit down for a second. She watched me with interest as I eased myself onto the nearest stoop and, although she looked like she might want to lean over and help, kept a safe distance. Her beautiful face was covered in a thick icing of grease, and her smile, filled with white, straight teeth, seemed more improbable on her than the women's clothing she wore so naturally. I assured her that I was fine, and she didn't insist. Instead, she headed in the direction of Avenida Osvaldo Aranha, her legs gently crisscrossing, like a girl in a bikini stepping toward the pool at her boyfriend's pal's house.



I moved my ankle around, checking for torn tendons. I was scared to look at my phone again, because doing so would confirm the news that just a few hours earlier, Andrei had been shot by a mugger someplace close to where I sat, and was now dead at the age of thirty-six-so I calculated, remembering he was just three years older than me. The step I had sat on was covered in burned matches, and the thought that they might have been lit by Andrei's murderer, a crack fiend ready to kill for a hit, sent a chill through me, followed by nausea. Pearls of sweat formed behind my ear and ran down my neck. I wondered what had happened to my city while I had been away, which was ridiculous, considering that just minutes earlier it had seemed to me that nothing at all had happened, that it was the same city it'd always been. It was probably then, in those few mystifying moments, that I was struck by the thought that these days were simply the gateway to a slow and irreversible catastrophe, or that the force, the natural law or entity, that gave life to our expectations-and by "our," I mean my expectations, those of my friends, my generation-was starting to die out.



It was my first trip to Porto Alegre in almost two years. I had arrived a week earlier, filled with memories of a breezy, colorful town trapped in the amber of spring days tinted by blue skies and the flowering pink trumpet trees of Parque da Reden o, memories that were undoubtedly real and yet pointed to a past both indistinct and disconnected from the present. Throughout that week, the city, carpeted in filth and sizzling under the heat of the worst summer in decades, had reminded me of a hepatitis patient left to die in the sun. Cars and people steered clear of the streets on that final day of January, school vacation in full swing and Carnaval just ar


Daniel Galera is a Brazilian writer and translator. He was born in São Paulo, but lives in Porto Alegre, where he has spent most of his life. He has published five novels in Brazil to great acclaim, including The Shape of Bones and Blood-Drenched Beard, which was awarded the 2013 São Paulo Literature Prize. In 2013 Granta named Galera one of the Best Young Brazilian Novelists and in 2017 he was chosen by Freeman's as one of the international authors representing the future of new writing. He has translated the work of Zadie Smith, John Cheever, and David Mitchell into Portuguese.


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