The Convalescent (Mcsweeneys) (Hardcover)

~ Jessica Anthony (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Anthony's compulsively readable debut novel stars Rovar Pfliegman, who sells meat out of a bus in Virginia. Rovar is a peculiar, troll-like man: he is short and hairy, has not spoken since childhood, keeps a pet beetle and lives in the same broken-down bus that houses his meat business. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about Rovar is his precarious singularity. He is the last of the Pfliegmans and, by his own account, he is falling apart. Although he halfheartedly seeks treatment for his various ailments, he seems far more bent on fulfilling the destiny of self-destruction all Pfliegmans (according to Rovar) are subject to. Rovar's explanation of his family sprawls deep into the past, probing beyond his chaotic childhood all the way back to the origins of the Pfliegman clan in premedieval Hungary. Along the way, the narrative nods to all sorts of greats—Kafka, Rushdie, Darwin and Grass, to name a few. But Anthony's style—funny, immediate and unapologetically cerebral—carves out a space all its own. (July)
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Review

"Anthony’s compulsively readable debut novel stars Rovar Pfliegman, who sells meat out of a bus in Virginia. Rovar is a peculiar, troll-like man: he is short and hairy, has not spoken since childhood, keeps a pet beetle and lives in the same broken-down bus that houses his meat business. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about Rovar is his precarious singularity. He is the last of the Pfliegmans and, by his own account, he is falling apart. Although he halfheartedly seeks treatment for his various ailments, he seems far more bent on fulfilling the destiny of self-destruction all Pfliegmans (according to Rovar) are subject to. Rovar’s explanation of his family sprawls deep into the past, probing beyond his chaotic childhood all the way back to the origins of the Pfliegman clan in premedieval Hungary. Along the way, the narrative nods to all sorts of greats—Kafka, Rushdie, Darwin and Grass, to name a few. But Anthony’s style—funny, immediate and unapologetically cerebral—carves out a space all its own."
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

"[Rover] belongs in the bus the same way his ancestors belonged on the sidelines of history, numbers dwindling during the many invasions of Hungary, the birth of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the death of Franz Ferdinand, the German occupation of Hungary and the Soviet occupation of Budapest, until there is only one Pfliegman left, Rovar, who, faced with extinction, instead finds himself reborn in the most awkwardly beautiful of ways."
—Dewey Hammond, San Francisco Chronicle

"By the time you come to leave Anthony’s curiously warped world of grumpy mute dwarves, medieval giants and packaged meat, you’ll find yourself wishing that real life was actually this vibrant and colourful. And when you find yourself being envious of a Hungarian dwarf with a rare skin condition, you know that the author has pulled off a very remarkable feat indeed."
—Spike Magazine

"A breathtaking and wholly captivating world. Anthony blends modern Americana, existential musing, absurdism and history, and grounds it all with the ever present voice of our narrator, Rovar. This voice is her greatest triumph, and the center around which the rest of the book revolves. We are able to see the constant stream of thought of a man who sees everything and says nothing, who records that which the rest of the world forgets, and who sees our world from a wholly unique perspective. This voice is earthy and cantankerous, while also being sweet and endearing."
—Andrew Wright, Pop Damage

“Jessica Anthony is a writer possessed of mind-bending talents. Inconceivably, she's written a novel that's innocent and wise, grave and hilarious, bleak and hopeful, fast-paced and meditative, heartbreaking and heart healthy, evanescent and concrete. Reading it, I felt as though I'd stumbled upon a magical text that might, at any moment, disappear from my hands. The Convalescent is that kind of special.”
—Heidi Julavits

"Jessica Anthony has given a voice—wry, sad, and arresting—to the wounded little homunculus that lives, largely ignored, in all of us, a creature that wrestles with a guilt and grief that is as historical as it is personal. The Convalescent is a melancholy delight."
—Chris Adrian

“The Convalescent is a fleshy fable spinning in and out of its own enormous, fabulous history. It is lush, cranky, and powered by dark, sweet humor. Mesmerizing. And a lot of fun. I enjoyed it completely.”
—Katherine Dunn

"A blissfully nutty, brainy, ribald, brilliantly imaginative ode to human loneliness, oddity, and persistence."
—Francisco Goldman

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: McSweeney's (June 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193478110X
• ISBN-13: 978-1934781104
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #182,673 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An astonishing book, July 6, 2009

By	Michael Ehringhaus (Portland, Maine) - See all my reviews

The Convalescent is an astonishing novel about small things, the events and people who, unnoticed, molt into the universe, right before our eyes. Jessica Anthony has given us a gift, a verdant, acutely smart, wickedly humorous novel, axenic and wise well beyond its pages. Rovar Pfliegman, the hero, loves without being loved, steals without repentance, and is, on first meeting, disgusting to all senses. However, his presence throughout the novel becomes etched into an enduring, joyful melancholy and onto the psyche we indite to protect the damaged little spiritus inhabiting each of our lives.

It would be difficult for me to typecast The Convalescent. While it is not a novel for everyone, it is a novel about everyone. It draws its strength from the weakest among us, from the humid, at times fetid, Rovar and his small world flush with a dominion that become ours. In the end, there is an ecdysis, the shedding of ego, that internal diathesis, as Rovar's world, our world, emerges, sonorous and pure. Which is fine.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Warmed my Eastern European soul>, July 12, 2009

By	J. F. Stafura "poetic badger" (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

An excellent book that uses two slices of time separated by 1000 years to show us that no matter how much our world has changed, we have remained emotionally fragile.

The writing is excellent and elegant, and the character's more subtle actions were very familiar have grown up in a first generation Hungarian home. Jessica Anthony's history of the Magyar's travel from the Ural Steppes to Eastern Europe is one of my favorites, a literally magical journey.

If you like intelligently written books that use history and great language to tell us about ourselves through people that we could never imagine ourselves being The Convalescent is your kind of book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I will never think about a mother's water breaking in the same way again, July 31, 2009

By	Matthew Coldwell "Mac" (Old Orchard Beach, Maine) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I love the world created in The Convalescent. Although I don't want to detract from the unique voice Jess Anthony has in this story by comparing her to a lot of other writers, I will say I wouldn't be surprised to see a Kilgore Trout or T.S. Garp standing in line to purchase some of Rovar's steaks. It is a world of melancholy, humor, and the sublime. And although I'm hardly a sickly midget of Hungarian descent, Rovar's world became my world while I was reading this. A pretty nifty trick.

It is a difficult thing to create characters like Rovar or his giant counterpart and ancestor Szeretlek without taking advantage of the reader's emotions, but I never felt dirty or used by this story. Rovar through his observations and insight has a way of turning those who pity him within the story into condescending asses and ultimately the most pitiable characters in the book. I think it is partly this trait in Rovar that keeps you from following suit.

The intertwining of the modern age and the 12th century history and myth is seamless. At the same time this story recognizes its modern lineage (the second section of the novel is titled Metamorphosis, for example), there are echoes of the primal stories we have been telling since before Szeretlek's age. The troll under the bridge, the ugly duckling, the loosely defined boogeymen in black suits that lurk on our periphery are all invoked in this story. It is a modern folk tale as much as it is a modern novel.

The next time I read about a stuffy Nobel judge or some European critic decrying the pausity or decline of American literature and how it lacks nuance or sophistication, The Convalescent will be the middle finger I reply with.