{"product_id":"9781555977993","title":"Tomb Song : A Novel","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eTomb Song\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Julián Herbert\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn incandescent new voice from Mexico, for readers of Ben Lerner and Rachel Cusk\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSitting at the bedside of his mother as she is dying from leukemia in a hospital in northern Mexico, the narrator of \u003ci\u003eTomb Song \u003c\/i\u003eis  immersed in memories of his unstable boyhood and youth. His mother,  Guadalupe, was a prostitute, and Julián spent his childhood with his  half brothers and sisters, each from a different father, moving from  city to city and from one tough neighborhood to the next.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSwinging from the present to the past and back again, \u003ci\u003eTomb Song\u003c\/i\u003e  is not only an affecting coming-of-age story but also a searching and  sometimes frenetic portrait of the artist. As he wanders the hospital,  from its buzzing upper floors to the haunted depths of the morgue,  Julián tells fevered stories of his life as a writer, from a trip with  his pregnant wife to a poetry festival in Berlin to a drug-fueled and  possibly completely imagined trip to another festival in Cuba.  Throughout, he portrays the margins of Mexican society as well as the  attitudes, prejudices, contradictions, and occasionally absurd history  of a country ravaged by corruption, violence, and dysfunction.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInhabiting the fertile ground between fiction, memoir, and essay, \u003ci\u003eTomb Song \u003c\/i\u003eis  an electric prose performance, a kaleidoscopic, tender, and often  darkly funny exploration of sex, love, and death. Julián Herbert’s  English-language debut establishes him as one of the most audacious  voices in contemporary letters.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[Julián Herbert is] among the more interesting and ambitious prose stylists of our time. . . . Irresistibly wise.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003ci\u003eTomb Song\u003c\/i\u003e leaves space for the high-minded, the sociopolitical and the pop culture-obsessed. . . . This novel sprawls, but never loses sight of the human connection at its core — and it's all the more moving as a result.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eStar Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e(Minneapolis)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“At once a thrilling document of lives spent along the margins, and a bright burst of formal reinvention, \u003ci\u003eTomb Song\u003c\/i\u003e remains elegiac and life-affirming.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBOMB\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Herbert takes a deep dive into an emotional, interconnected story on death, family, love and ambition, resulting in a work that is at once personal and universal.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Gazette\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e(Cedar Rapids)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A meditation on art, intimacy, and revolution. . . . Raw, heady, and wonderful.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLiterary Hub\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003ci\u003eTomb Song\u003c\/i\u003e . . . is one of the most important, exciting, and original works of literature to come out of Latin America in the past decade.”\u003cb\u003e—Los Angeles Review of Books \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A mix of anecdotes and metafictional self-awareness, Herbert’s narrative—skillfully translated by Christina MacSweeney—rises above its gloomy premise to meditate on the idea of family while questioning the ways we engage reality and relate our experiences to others. . . . A wild and inventive novel.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKenyon Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Simultaneously gorgeous and dirty, [Herbert] brings us poignant moments of beauty.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eWashington Independent Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“From its pathos-filled prologue to its poignant closing lines, [\u003ci\u003eTomb Song\u003c\/i\u003e] is shot through with fury and filial love. This sounds\u003cbr\u003e bleak—it isn’t. Indeed, it is one of the novel’s characteristics that it is able to swing from heartbreak to grisly humor within a few\u003cbr\u003e lines.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eWords Without Borders \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003ci\u003eTomb Song\u003c\/i\u003e modulates between different kinds of prose in a story that is chaotic, absurd, and painfully poignant.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eWorld Literature Today \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This is a story infused with dreams of black magic, political unrest, lone flaneuring and hard drinking, but also one of kindness, compassion, sharp humour and a loquaciousness that one usually reserves for close friends.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003e3:AM Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It is our pleasure, as readers of \u003ci\u003eTomb Song\u003c\/i\u003e, to witness this raw nerve’s transmission of pain, memory, genius.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Arkansas International\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003ci\u003eTomb Song\u003c\/i\u003e is a work that is always pulling back, folding its author in upon himself. . . . Within these pages, Herbert wrestles the ambiguity of grief and reminiscence into structure and form, transforming the vulgarity of life into a book that is both brutal and beautiful.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSplit Lip Magazine \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Beautiful and profane. . . . Herbert’s style, and his skill with the boundaries of genre and narrative distance, are singularly accomplished. . . . The literary performance of \u003ci\u003eTomb Song\u003c\/i\u003e is captivating.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eCleaver\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Deeply observed; a welcome arrival by a writer worth paying attention to.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9781555977993\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"Graywolf Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback","offer_id":40673545584846,"sku":"9781555977993","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/getimage_2c6d0fb7-ed22-41d3-888f-a2c9d23eb72b.jpg?v=1639887829","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9781555977993","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}