The Gravedigger [Paperback]

Peter Grandbois (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 19, 2007

"Reminiscent of the work of Luis Alberto Urrea and Gabriel Garca Mrquez (Booklist), this enchanting first novelnow in paperbackwas an Original Voices feature at Borders and a Discover Great New Writers selection at Barnes & Noble. Juan Rodrigo, a gravedigger in a small Andalusianvillage, hears the voices of the dead and tells their stories to the livinga job that turns out to have both rewards and dangers in a magical place where spirits and people coexist harmoniously, and where readers will linger with delight.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A grave digger in a mountain village in Spain, haunted by the people he buries, is compelled to pass along their stories in Grandbois's amiable but corny debut novel. Juan Rodrigo sets out to dig one last grave, that of his only child, teenage Esperanza. Sitting down with Esperanza's ghost, Juan recounts a life of work and fatherhood, interrupted by tales of his deceased charges. Many of these tales teach lessons like forgiveness, as in "The Story of Sofia and César," about the town crone who betrayed her husband and only learned in death to forgive him for refusing to take her back. Others are personal, like the story of Juan's wife, Carlota, who died after giving birth, concerning her unhappy first marriage to a man whose war injury prevented him from consummating. Most poignant is Esperanza's own tale of growing up motherless, her only companions a horse named Bella and a Gypsy boy, Antonio, whom she grows to love. All Juan's tales pertain to the slippery notion of truth—when Juan claims, "I can only tell stories that have truth," Esperanza asks him, "[H]ow do you know that your story is the true one?"—which lends some weight to his words, but too often Juan indulges in sentiment and nostalgia. The Old World charm of Grandbois's novel tickles, but fails to captivate. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Readers who revel in magic realism will embrace this poignant debut about a poor but honest Spaniard with a gift for communicating with the dead. Although Juan Rodrigo is known throughout his tiny Andalusian village as a gravedigger, telling stories is his true cachet. Juan is well respected, but the painful (and, at times, unsavory) truths he reveals about the recently departed don't always go over well among surviving relatives and friends. "That man is of the devil" is an indictment he often hears. The spirit of Juan's late wife lives on in their daughter, Esperanza, a willful young girl on the verge of womanhood. Juan's compassionate nature is put to the test when Esperanza falls in love with a young Gypsy boy. Grandbois, who has lived both in the U.S and Spain, renders lively descriptions of the villagers: flamboyant storyteller El Romancero, who sweeps into town with a guitar and a cape; the mayor's pushy wife, Consuela, with an unfortunate tendency toward large, feathered hats; and wise old Sofia, a woman from a neighboring village who emits a fart with each step. Reminiscent of the work of Luis Alberto Urrea and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, this luminous first offering brims with earthy humor and heart. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (April 19, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811858189
• ISBN-13: 978-0811858182
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,988,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peter Grandbois is the author of The Gravedigger (Chronicle Books 2006), a Barnes and Noble "Discover Great New Writers" and Borders "Original Voices" selection, The Arsenic Lobster: A Hybrid Memoir (Spuyten Duyvil 2009), selected by Sacramento News & Review as one of the top five memoirs of 2009, and Nahoonkara (Etruscan Press 2011). His essays and short fiction have appeared in numerous magazines and received an honorable mention for the 2007 Pushcart Prize. He is currently a professor of creative writing and contemporary literature at Denison University in Ohio.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book will linger in your mind!, May 23, 2006

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gravedigger (Hardcover)

Start with the simple facts. The novel is set in the Andalucia region of Spain. Its central character is Juan Rodrigo, a gravedigger who lives in a small village. He can see and talk to ghosts. His wife Carlota died during childbirth, and Rodrigo misses and remembers her through a slow, painful trickle of grief. He has a daughter, Esperanza, who is a delightful spitfire both envious of her father's relationship with the ghosts she initially cannot see and stubborn enough to enter a reckless romance with a gypsy boy. Woven together, these facts are more than enough substance for a satisfying story.

Yet what sets this novel apart is its simple love of storytelling, storytelling in all its manifestations and varieties. In his press materials, Grandbois reveals the novel's debt to his eldest daughter. Father and daughter apparently engaged for years in a collaborative storytelling ritual, and Grandbois brings that experience into fruition here with joyful experimentation. Every person has a complicated story, this novel demonstrates, and every story can be told in an infinite number of ways.

Grandbois also uses the natural beauty of his setting and a smorgasbord of folklore and culture for good effect in this novel. His descriptive passages rely on the carefully selected detail, the satisfying metaphor, or the finely honed image. Consider this passage: "The rocks stood silent, but the poplars and pines, having a greater understanding of the sorrow of loss, groaned with the effort of bending their great trunks, if only to be a bit nearer to the man kneeling upon the cliff face."

The narrative structure and carefully crafted sentences offer enough reasons to appreciate this novel, but its focus on each person's small but intensely felt drama of life and its compassionate portrayals of imperfect people make the book distinctive.

Armchair Interviews says: The Gravedigger will linger as a ghost in your memory long after you finish it, and rather than evoking terror, this book's ghost will tell you interesting stories.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating, April 10, 2006

By 

T. Travis - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gravedigger (Hardcover)

I thouroughly enjoyed The Gravedigger. The colorful characters were so interesting and real, I found myself thinking of them long after I put the book down. This is a book I'll read again just to reaquaint myself with main characters, Juan and Esperanza Rodrigo, and to revisit the subjects of truth and how life continues beyond the earthly. It was a compelling and fun read!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunning, beautiful work, July 1, 2006

By 

Alan Sigudo - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gravedigger (Hardcover)

I just finished reading 'The Gravedigger' last night --a stunning, beautiful work. Grandbois balances humor and sadness in the perfect proportions. This Juan Rodrigo is such a wonderful, devoted, blessed/accursed and pitiable character; I want to buy him a drink and get him to tell me more of his stories. I enjoyed watching the dynamic between him and his daughter Esperanza change as she got older, as she began to blossom into the green flower she was meant to be. The parting of people as they grow older is often more sad than than the parting that comes with death, because when a person is dead, there's a finality that cannot be denied, but when the person still lives, there's this lingering sense of loss or failure or powerlessness. This book captures both.

But this novel is also lighthearted and quite hilarious at times. The conspiring birds were a hoot! I loved watching that dandy get splattered. Rosalia was a very strong character, one of my favs, with her oddities and rough but tender qualities, and of course, her restorative soups. I could go on, but I don't want to deprive the reader of experiencing the wonders of this book for themselves.