Barracuda - Hardcover

Tsiolkas, Christos

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0804138427 ISBN 13: 9780804138420

Publisher: Hogarth Pr, 2014

Synopsis

Man Booker Prize-longlisted author of The Slap (soon to be an NBC miniseries) returns in an “immensely moving” (Sunday Times) story of a young athlete’s coming of age

Fourteen-year-old Daniel Kelly is special. Despite his upbringing in working-class Melbourne, he knows that his astonishing ability in the swimming pool has the potential to transform his life, silence the rich boys at the private school to which he has won a sports scholarship, and take him far beyond his neighborhood, possibly to international stardom and an Olympic medal. Everything Danny has ever done, every sacrifice his family has ever made, has been in pursuit of this dream. But what happens when the talent that makes you special fails you? When the goal that you’ve been pursuing for as long as you can remember ends in humiliation and loss?

Twenty years later, Dan is in Scotland, terrified to tell his partner about his past, afraid that revealing what he has done will make him unlovable. When he is called upon to return home to his family, the moment of violence in the wake of his defeat that changed his life forever comes back to him in terrifying detail, and he struggles to believe that he’ll be able to make amends. Haunted by shame, Dan relives the intervening years he spent in prison, where the optimism of his childhood was completely foreign.

Tender, savage, and blazingly brilliant, Barracuda is a novel about dreams and disillusionment, friendship and family, class, identity, and the cost of success. As Daniel loses everything, he learns what it means to be a good person—and what it takes to become one.

About this title

Review:

TTsiolkas writes with compelling clarity about the primal stuff that drives us all: the love and hate and fear of failure... A brilliant, beautiful book. If it doesn't make you cry, you can't be fully alive. --Sunday Times
I finished Barracuda on a high: moved, elated, immersed... This is the work of a superb writer who has completely mastered his craft but lost nothing of his fiery spirit in so doing. It is a big achievement. --Guardian
Terrific --Kate Saunders, The Times
Masterful, addictive, clear-eyed storytelling about the real business of life: winning and losing --Viv Groskop, Red Online
This involving and substantial tale - surprisingly tender for all its sweary shock-value - is carried swiftly along by Tsiolkas's athletic, often lyrical prose. --Daily Mail
The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas's bestselling previous novel declared "Welcome to Australia in the early 21st century." The same semi-ironic sentiment echoes throughout Barracuda, which is, if anything, an even greater novel... It may tell an old, old story, but it has rarely been told in a better way --Sunday Telegraph
Christos Tsiolkas is in his natural element, with sentences gliding elegantly until the reader is utterly submerged in this absorbing story --Metro
This is a compelling, moving novel about identity, failure and the redemptive power of family --Mail on Sunday

See Christos talk about Barracuda --http://atlantic-books.co.uk/barracuda

Review:

“...Tsiolkas has written an absolute ripper.” (The Age)

“A contemporary Australian masterpiece.” (Australian Bookseller+Publisher)

About this edition

• Publisher: Hogarth Pr
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0804138427
• ISBN 13: 9780804138420
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 431