The Wind That Lays Waste

Om boken

Reverend Pearson is an evangelist preaching the word of God across northern Argentina with Leni, his teenage daughter, in tow. When their car breaks down, fate leads them to the workshop of an ageing mechanic, Gringo Brauer, and his assistant, a boy called Tapioca. Over the course of a long day, curiosity and a sense of new opportunities develop into an unexpected intimacy. Yet this encounter between a man convinced of his righteousness and one mired in cynicism and apathy will become a battle for the very souls of the young pair: the quietly earnest and idealistic mechanic's assistant, and the restless, sceptical preacher's daughter. As tensions among the four ebb and flow, beliefs are questioned and allegiances tested, until finally the growing storm breaks over the plains. An exquisitely crafted novel with limpid and confident prose, profound and poetic, offering a near-tangible experience of the landscape amid the hot winds, wrecked cars, sweat-stained shirts and damaged lives. Told with the cinematic precision of a static road movie, like a Paris, Texas of the south, with echoes of Carson McCullers, this is a contemplative and powerfully distinctive work.