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A review by shawntowner
The Convalescent by Jessica Anthony
5.0
A wonderful book about a non-verbal Hungarian midget named Rovar who sells meat out of a school bus in Virginia. The novel is structured in a fashion that reminds me of Everything is Illuminated: chapters in the present alternating with chapters in the past. The chapters dealing with the past in The Convalescent focus on the lost, forgotten, and neglected 11th tribe of Hungary. This 11th tribe is a clan of deformed butchers and a giant monk who revolutionizes mounted combat archery.
Like Everything is Illuminated, the sections taking place in the past are filled with elements of magical realism, which eventually spills over into the present-day plot. As much as I enjoy the magical realism, the one problem I had with the novel was the Kafkaesque ending. I was fine with Rovar's hallucinatory visions of Speedo-clad water polo captains and Carly Simon, but I didn't care for the magical absurdity of the last few pages of the novel.
McSweeney's did a great job choosing author Jessica Anthony as the first winner of the Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award. The Convalescent is a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes stories about non-verbal midget meatmongers.
Like Everything is Illuminated, the sections taking place in the past are filled with elements of magical realism, which eventually spills over into the present-day plot. As much as I enjoy the magical realism, the one problem I had with the novel was the Kafkaesque ending. I was fine with Rovar's hallucinatory visions of Speedo-clad water polo captains and Carly Simon, but I didn't care for the magical absurdity of the last few pages of the novel.
McSweeney's did a great job choosing author Jessica Anthony as the first winner of the Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award. The Convalescent is a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes stories about non-verbal midget meatmongers.