The Skating Rink (Hardcover)
Roberto Bolano
- Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation, New York
- Date published: 2009
- Format: Hardcover
- ISBN: 9780811217132
Hardcover. Set in the seaside town of Z, on the Costa Brava, north of Barcelona, The Skating Rink oscillates between two poles: a camp ground and a ruined mansion, the Palacio Benvingut. The story, told by three male narrators, revolves around a beautiful figure skating champion, Nuria Marti. When she is suddenly dropped from the Olympic team, a pompous but besotted civil servant secretly builds a skating rink in the ruined Palacio Benvingut, using public funds. But Nuria has affairs, provokes jealousy, and the skating rink becomes a crime scene. A mysterious pair of women, an ex-opera singer and a taciturn girl often armed with a knife, turn up as well. A complex book, The Skating Rink's short chapters are skillfully broken off with questions to maintain the narrative tension: Who was murdered? Who was the murderer? Will the murderer be caught? All of these questions are answered, and yet The Skating Rink is not fundamentally a crime novel, or not exclusively; it's also about political corruption, sex, the experience of immigration, and frustrated passion.And it's an atmospheric chronicle of one summer season in a seaside town, with its vacationers, its drifters, its businessmen, bureaucrats and social workers. "He is by far the most exciting writer to come from South of the Rio Grande in a long time." -Ilan Stavans, Los Angeles Times Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.
citiretail-30.46-462d2714d14be633a0b5a9ae0fbf6690