Madness Is Better Than Defeat: A novel

Author: Beauman, Ned

Edition: 1st Edition

Format: Deckle Edge

Number Of Pages: 416

Details:

In 1938, two rival expeditions descend on an ancient temple recently discovered in the jungles of Honduras, one intending to shoot a huge Hollywood production on location there, the other to disassemble the temple and ship it back to New York. A seemingly endless stalemate ensues. Twenty years later, a rogue CIA agent sets out to exploit the temple for his own ends, unaware that it is a locus of conspiracies far grander than anyone could ever have guessed. Shot through with intrigue, ingenuity, and adventure, and showcasing Beauman’s riotous humor, spectacular imagination, and riveting prose, Madness Is Better Than Defeat is a novel without parallel: inventive, anarchic, and delightfully insane.

Reviews:

“A brilliant comedic commentary on colonialism, capitalism, religious war and violence . . . fueled by Beauman’s gorgeous descriptions and hysterically funny bits.”—Helen Stapinski, The New York Times Book Review

"Reminiscent of the Coen Brothers at their best, Madness Is Better Than Defeat is a strange, brilliant and satisfying trip to a more entertaining version of history."--Jaclyn Fulwood, Shelf Awareness  

"Mystery, murder, and mayhem abound in this highly imaginative, devilishly plotted adventure from Granta Best of Young British Writers Beauman."--Barbara Love, Library Journal

"[A] rowdy, thoroughly satisfying literary adventure. . . . Exquisitely comic and absurd, Beauman's imaginative novel brims with the snappy dialogue, vivid scenery, and converging story lines of an old Hollywood classic."-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)  

"Like an agent of the former British Empire, this book goes all over the world, gets in adventures, and maintains a tone of restraint even in tight spots--with comedic results. Take Graham Greene, add salaciousness and surreality, and you've got the undefeated madness that only Ned Beauman can deliver. A work of globe-trotting imagination, sex, violence and wit, told in an elegant style--an accomplishment that writers will study and readers will delight in."--Atticus Lish, author of Preparation for the Next Life  

"Ned Beauman writes sentences so good I want to collect them, except that after a few pages I'm basically just transcribing the book. His newest novel is elegant, witty, precise and often hilarious. I didn't read it so much as savor it, word by word."--Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

About the Author:

NED BEAUMAN was born in 1985 and studied philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He was included on Granta's 2013 list of the twenty best young British novelists, and his work has been translated into more than ten languages. He lives in London. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. ***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof*** Copyright © 2018 Ned Beauman SPRINGFIELD, VIRGINIA—1959 The tribunal will not reconvene until I’ve had a chance to consider all the available evidence in my case. That is my right as an American and as an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. If the testimony I’ve submitted is true, then the proof may be somewhere in that warehouse, and therefore I must be allowed to look for it. My persecutors pretend to regard this rule as an inconvenience, because without it they’d be permitted to empty the warehouse tomorrow to make more room for stolen Politburo cigar stubs or whatever else they want to archive out here in Virginia. But really it delights them. There’s no easy way to take a measure of “all the available evidence in my case,” but I estimate it at about three hundred million feet, an alchemical prodigy of urine and rock salt and Mayan armor, glossy bales decomposing into nitric frass. To pick through it all with proper care, building a chronology and a concordance, is the work of decades. And I don’t have decades. This is how I know. During the failed Cuban War of Independence in 1868, a wealthy Spanish fam...

EAN: 9780385352994

Release Date: 13-02-2018

Languages: English

Item Note: Great shape- pages are unmarked and sharp.Has a remainder mark. Hardcover Used - Like New Ships fast! 20181st Edition

Item Condition: UsedLikeNew

Binding: Hardcover