Act of the Damned [Paperback]

Antonio Lobo Antunes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 12, 1996

As the socialist revolution closes in, a once-wealthy Portuguese family is accused of "economic sabotage." They must escape across the border to Spain, then on to Brazil -- but the family is bankrupt, financially and spiritually. The patriarch, Diogo, lies dying, while his rapacious offspring rifle through his belongings, searching for his will. He remembers with bitterness and resignation his foolish marriage to his brother's beautiful mistress, who left him with a mongoloid daughter and a simpleminded son, who at sixty is running toy trains past his father's deathbed with the solemn self-importance of a five-year-old. Told through a rippling overlay of voices, Act of the Damned circles closer and closer to the revelation of the diabolical immorality of Diogo's greedy son-in-law Rodrigo . . . who has fathered a child of his own bastard daughter and who is closing in on Diogo's crumbling estate. In the oppressive autumn heat, the characters' schemes ebb and flow in an atmosphere of decrepit elegance, tarnished silver, and rotting brocade. When the moment of departure finally arrives, the scene shifts from chaos to vacuum and Rodrigo finds himself no longer at the center of the group but firmly, terrifyingly, outside and alone.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Awarded the Portuguese Writers' Association Grand Prize for Fiction, this novel allows American readers another glimpse at Antunes's difficult, malicious brilliance. Set in Portugal in the mid-1970s, it concerns a bourgeois family trying to settle the estate of its dying patriarch, Diogo, and escape the country before what they believe will be a dangerous socialist takeover. But it is around Rodrigo, Diogo's voraciously greedy son-in-law, that the story revolves, as he schemes to secure what money remains after Diogo's lifetime of crooked investments. Other contenders for the fortune are Diogo's three children: Leonor, wife of Rodrigo, bitter after his years of philandering; simple-minded Goncalo, obsessed with his model trains and married to the nameless mother of Francisco and beautiful Ana; and a severely retarded woman whose daughter (by Rodrigo) is referred to as "the cousin." Each character narrates a facet of the story, which itself just barely emerges from Antunes's (Elephant Memory) dazzlingly tangential style. Of the 10 perspectives given voice, that of Nunu, Ana's caustic husband, comprises the first third of the book; voices outside the clan include a doctor and a notary, both of whom are horrified at the family's corruption, which takes its most disturbing form in the compulsive incest perpetrated by Rodrigo. Set over five days, the narrative modulates between the characters' memories, fantasies and realities in darkly funny imagistic riffs. This tale of familial sin and disintegration (luminously translated by Zenith) chillingly mimics the surrounding political climate, as two dictatorships?of Portugal and of this family?perish.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Written ten years ago and set 20 years ago as the fall of Antonio Salazar ushered in an imaginary Communist revolution, this novel by Portugal's foremost writer, described as an amalgam of Celine and Dos Passos, deftly sketches a disintegrating world of scampering capitalist mice, once fattened on the cheese of factories and estates and now desperate to flee across the Guadiana into Spain. Against this setting unfolds Rodrigo's selfish struggle to cheat his simple-minded siblings of their inheritance. But despite his wiliest machinations, the inheritance is revealed to have been squandered on casinos, whorehouses, and medical treatments for the two idiotic siblings. A friendless Rodrigo is left stranded among gloating Communists. Hilarious in its baroque accumulation of detail and stunning for the author's control of his constantly shifting narrative voices, this work is worth committing to. For general readers as well as specialists.?Jack Shreve, Allegany Community Coll., Cumberland, Md.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 246 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (September 12, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802134769
• ISBN-13: 978-0802134769
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,019,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A future Nobel Prize Winner!, May 9, 2002

By 

Pedro (V.N.Gaia Portugal) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Act of the Damned (Paperback)

This is an excellent example of why A. Lobo Antunes should win the Nobel Prize. The book is built around a once healthy family with a very peculiar group of members. Each one will give you is view of the family in is strange vision of the world. Amazing book.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Splendid !, May 31, 2000

By 

Eva - See all my reviews

This review is from: Act of the Damned (Paperback)

One of the best contemporary portuguese novelists! The reading of this book, or any other of the same author for that matter, is both compelling and envolving! For those who are strangers to portuguese fiction I strongly recommend this book.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Single writing by a single writer, July 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Act of the Damned (Paperback)

Lobo Antunes is a single writer and shows to the world the fellings and thoughts of Lisbon people. I prefer the man behind the writer. The writer is a cold and professional student of the behavior of the human bean, the man is searching without Know his happiness and forget the Africa war.