Act of the Damned

By António Lobo Antunes

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802134769
• ISBN13: 9780802134769
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 246 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

A future Nobel Prize Winner!

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.

Well writen and very well drawn book

The author is a MD shrink And we feel that very well on the way he draws his characters on this book. Very well written. One of the Nobel prize nominees this year, last year and next year. Until he finally wons it.

Splendid !

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.

Single writing by a single writer

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.