The Club of Angels - Softcover

Verissimo, Luis Fernando

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811217558 ISBN 13: 9780811217552

Publisher: New Directions, 2008

Synopsis

A literary mystery about cooking and gourmands by one of Brazil's most popular authors.

The Club of Angels is an irresistible, enticing book about the sin of gluttony. With wit and dark humor, Verissimo tells the story of ten well-to-do men who meet every month to dine fabulously. When their leader and chef dies of AIDS, he is replaced by a mysterious, strangely taciturn cook who gives them gastronomic experiences to die for!

About this title

About the Authors

Luis Fernando Verissimo, son of writer Érico Verissimo, is one of Brazil's best-known literary figures. He is a cartoonist, saxaphone player, and the author of novels and newspaper cronicas.


Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson have translated the work of Lúcio Cardoso, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, and Clarice Lispector, among others. They live in England.

Reviews

*Starred Review* There is limited suspense in Verissimo’s novel about the final days of a deadly dining club, even though it imitates a classic Agatha Christie structure. One by one, each of the 10 wealthy friends who meet monthly to devour extravagant feasts is killed upon accepting a poisoned extra portion of the dish he craves the most. The cook behind these dangerous delicacies is Lucídio, a mysterious gourmand who steps in to take the place of the group’s former leader, recently dead of AIDS. What appears to be a story about gluttony is just the opposite—each of the gastronomes starves from an empty life, and what better way to fill this void than with the most self-renewing of passions? Eating an exquisite last meal gives each man, if only for a moment, a taste of real emotion, and so they willingly partake in their own demise. In this way, the murders become more like suicides, the final course in the bizarre ritual of formal dining. It’s a plot arc so doomed that it’s not just amusing; it’s morbidly enthralling, like a socially acceptable snuff film. There is indeed a good mystery to be solved in Verissimo’s short work (nicely translated from the Portuguese), but it is the melancholic yearning that makes the prose stick in the head—and gut. The novel was originally published in hardcover in 2002 but quickly disappeared. If you missed it then, don’t now. --Daniel Kraus

Edition details

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811217558
• ISBN 13: 9780811217552
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144