The end

Title:

The end

Author:

Torres, Fernanda, 1965- author.

Added Author:

Entrekin, Alison,

Personal Author:

Torres, Fernanda, 1965- author.

ISBN:

9781632061218

Edition:

First Restless Books paperback edition.

Physical Description:

253 pages ; 18 cm

Abstract:

"With uncanny insight into the less virtuous corners of the male psyche, Fernanda Torres brings us five friends who once milked the high life of Rio's Bossa Nova age and are now left with memories--parties, marriages, divorces, fixations, inhibitions, bad decisions--and the grim realities of getting old. Álvaro lives alone and bemoans the evils of his ex-wife. Sílvio can't give up the excesses of sex and drugs. Ribeiro is a vain, Viagra-abusing beach bum. Neto is the square, a faithful husband until the end. Ciro is the Don Juan envied by all--but the first to die. Cutting in on these swan songs are the testimonies of those the men seduced, cheated, loved, and abandoned: their wives and children. Edgy, funny, and wise, The End is a candid tropical tragicomedy and an epitaph for a lost generation of machos."--Amazon.com.

Subject Term:

Death -- Fiction.

Friendship -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) -- Fiction.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Hull Street	Book	FICTION TORRES	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

In this deadly-funny debut novel by renowned Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres, five macho friends in Rio's Copacabana reflect on their hedonistic glory days--now supplanted by the indignities of aging--in what turn out to be their final moments.

With uncanny insight into the less virtuous corners of the male psyche, Fernanda Torres brings us five friends who once milked the high life of Rio's Bossa Nova age and are now left with memories--parties, marriages, divorces, fixations, inhibitions, bad decisions--and the grim realities of getting old. Álvaro lives alone and bemoans the evils of his ex-wife. Sílvio can't give up the excesses of sex and drugs. Ribeiro is a vain, Viagra-abusing beach bum. Neto is the square, a faithful husband until the end. Ciro is the Don Juan envied by all--but the first to die. Cutting in on these swan songs are the testimonies of those the men seduced, cheated, loved, and abandoned: their wives and children. Edgy, funny, and wise, The End is a candid tropical tragicomedy and an epitaph for a lost generation of machos.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

In this harsh first novel by a Brazilian actress, five elderly men reflect on their friendships with each other and their exhaustive love lives.It gives nothing away to explain that all fivelvaro, Slvio, Ribeiro, Neto, Cirodie; Torres structures her book around each man's dying narration. Walking home for the last time, in 2014, 85-year-old lvaro is bitter, misogynistic, and highly critical of his already dead friends. Glad to be done with sex, he recalls the unpleasant half-baked orgy Slvio held before leaving Rio years earlier. Each man will remember this orgy in a tellingly different way that highlights his character. Lying helpless on a sidewalk at age 66 in 2009, banker Slvio admits the orgy was a phony farewell. He never really left Rio, merely transferred to a different bank branch to avoid his friends. If lvaro is a cold fish, Slvio is a crude, selfish sensualist. Dumping his wife, he carries on an obsessive, tawdry affair with a young bisexual woman who happens to be Ribeiro's girlfriend. After Slvio's death, from Parkinson's combined with recreational drug use, his son runs an ad apologizing for Slvio's years of bad behavior and inviting others to celebrate his death. Ribeiro and Neto are outliers. Rebeiro, who suffers a heart attack after taking Viagra at age 83, is the group's only bachelor but has always secretly loved Ciro's wife, Ruth. Half black, Neto has lived under pressures his friends would never understand. A decent man, he dies in 1992, one year after his wife of over 30 years. Everyone admires handsome, intelligent, passionate Ciro, but he commits an unforgivable act of cruelty against Ruth. When lvaro asks if the fast-growing cancer that strikes 50-year-old Ciro in 1990 is God's punishment, Ciro implies that he hopes so. So will readers. The flair and wit of Torres' writing does not allay the unpleasant aftertaste left by this unforgiving portrait of men at their worst. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.