The Afterlife of Stars - Hardcover

Kertes, Joseph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316308110 ISBN 13: 9780316308113

Publisher: Little, Brown US, 2017

Synopsis

When Russian tanks roll into the public squares of Budapest to crush the Hungarian Revolution, brothers Robert and Attila Beck flee with their family to the Paris townhouse of their great-aunt Hermina. The year is 1956 and as their country changes forever, these two boys transform as well, confronting danger and wonders previously unknown.

As they travel through minefields both real and imagined, Robert and Attila grapple with sibling rivalry, family secrets and incalculable loss. Along the way they encounter mysterious fellow travelers, bewildering sights of a nation in transition and surprising hilarity, all in pursuit of the one place they thought they'd lost forever: home.

Elegant, tender and deeply funny, Joseph Kertes has crafted a journey filled with adventure and heartbreak. A meditation on both family and displacement, THE AFTERLIFE OF STARS is a tale of perseverance, faith and the unbreakable bond of brotherhood.

About this title

Review

"The Afterlife of Stars is Joseph Kertes's masterpiece. Robert Beck, the young narrator, is absolutely captivating (and very funny!) as he takes us along on his terrifying journey."
--Miriam Toews, two-time Giller Prize finalist for All My Puny Sorrows and A Complicated Kindness

"The Afterlife of Stars is tender in its evocation of fierceness and wrenching in its rendering of two brothers' hunger to penetrate both the wonders and the awful secrets of a world that always seems just out of reach. It's memorably sad and surprisingly funny on the elusiveness of home and the intensity of family bonds."
--Jim Shepard, author of The Book of Aron

"The Afterlife of Stars blazes with every single good thing that a work of fiction ever does or could do. It is brilliant. Radiant."--Richard Bausch, PEN/Malamud Award-winning author of Peace


"Agony, humor, and a boy's bewilderment and wonder coalesce in this glittering novel. Joseph Kertes evokes a vanishing culture with poignancy and love. His boy-narrator is a marvelous creation."
--D. M. Thomas, Man Booker Prize finalist for The White Hotel


"A beautifully written story of brotherly love, family, and the intersection of history in the 20th century."
--Andrea Kempf, Library Journal (Starred Review)


"[A] fervent novel. Kertes (Gratitude, 2009), winner of the National Jewish Book Award, begins his newest work in his own native Budapest.... [protagonists] Robert and Attila are a winning pair of guides....Kertes' voice is a lyrical one, and his work is frequently moving."
--Kirkus Reviews


"Devastating yet unnervingly funny....it's not every writer who can render a scene like this with such verisimilitude so many years after the fact....What is clear--and unquestionably lucky for us--is that Kertes's memories survived his own family's flight to Canada and have found expression in this inspired and deeply affecting novel. 'I'm not asking for a story for the ages, ' Robert tells his Aunt Hermina. 'I'm asking what happened to you.' Kertes has given us both."
--Julie Orringer, New York Times Book Review


"The Afterlife of Stars moved me more than any other novel I've read in recent memory. It hypnotizes. It delights. It shines on every page with a quiet, implacable, blanketing beauty-like a snowfall. Beyond all else, The Afterlife of Stars reaches into your chest and takes hold of your heart and does not let go, not even after the last page is turned. The Afterlife of Stars keeps shining on. What an exquisite novel."--Tim O'Brien, National Book Award-winning author of The Things They Carried


"We meet the Beck brothers at the very moment history lays its claim on them. Their bond is sure to become one of literature's great and sustaining relationships. Joseph Kertes writes with tremendous love for the idiosyncratic and passionate loyalties of family. With masterly concision, he expresses the trauma of an era. This is a book of remarkable scope and depth; unforgettable and deeply moving."--Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces


"The Afterlife of Stars is a great adventure story, at once fantastical and true. And the inimitable Beck brothers allow us to see past the horrors of the world with a childlike precocity."--David Bezmozgis, Two-time Giller Prize finalist for The Betrayers and The Free World

Book Description

"The Afterlife of Stars moved me more than any other novel I've read in recent memory." --Tim O'Brien

About this edition

• Publisher: Little, Brown US
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0316308110
• ISBN 13: 9780316308113
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256