The Love of Singular Men

by Victor Heringer, James Young (Translator)

The gripping English debut of the famous and hugely talented Brazilian writer Victor Heringer, who died tragically young.  In a Rio de Janeiro suburb in the 1970s, a married couple, their daughter, and crippled teenage son Camilo, take in an orphan named Cosme. Their teen boys unexpectedly fall in love, but their intimate world is shattered when Cosme is killed by a neighbor in a brutal hate crime. Decades later, Camilo returns to his hometown, still haunted by this violence and the long shadow of Brazil’s military dictatorship.  A fluid queer coming-of-age story as well as an incisive and unforgiving exploration of Brazilian society and politics, Heringer’s moving novel is worthy of Machado de Assis.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Brazil, Gay, Romance, Contemporary

144 pages, Paperback

First published August 2, 2016

About the author

Victor Doblas Heringer (Rio de Janeiro, 27 de março de 1988 – Rio de Janeiro, 7 de março de 2018) foi um escritor brasileiro. Recebeu o Prêmio Jabuti em 2013, pelo romance Glória, e foi finalista do Prêmio Oceanos 2017, por O Amor dos Homens Avulsos.

Reviews

[Marcela Dantés · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reler esse livro agora, que coisa difícil, doída e doida. Um dos romances mais importantes dos dias atuais, um choque. Um buraco. Um puta livro de um puta escritor. E a gente que perde, perde e dá vontade de nunca mais rrarrarrir. Vai bem, Victor Heringer.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shortlisted for The ALTA First Translation Prize

Runner up for the Society of Actuaries TA First Translation Prize

How absurd it is to try to write Cosme, Cosme's ways, Cosme's words, the faces Cosme pulled. How I wish I had a photo of him to stick in here. (I don't know if I'd have the courage.) He never even had an ID photo taken. Whenever I think about this, I find it incredible: almost every human being in history lived and died without having a single photo taken. My Cosme was probably one of the last. (The police must have a photo of his prone corpse, his body covered in knife wounds, his face sunken. Not one like that.)

The Love of Singular Men is James Young’s highly accomplished translation of Victor Heringer’s O Amor dos Homens Avulsos (2016), the second novel by the writer who died in 2018 just before his 30th birthday: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog...

Young’s translation followed him winning the 2022 Peirene Stevns Translation Prize, based on submitting a translation of part of the text, the winner receiving a writing residency and being mentored and commissioned to translate the book for publication by Peirene Press: https://www.peirenepress.com/prize/

The novel which is set in a fictional suburb of Rio, Queim, opens:

In the beginning, our planet was hot, sickly yellow and stank of stale beer. The ground was black with boiling, clinging mud.

The outer suburbs of Rio de Janeiro were the first things to come into this world, even before the volcanoes and the sperm whales, before Portugal invaded, before President Gettilio Vargas ordered the construction of social housing. Queim, where I was born and grew up, is one of those suburbs. Tucked between Engenho Novo and Andaral, it was made from that primordial sludge, which coagulated into various shapes: stray dogs, flies and steep hills, a train station, almond trees and shacks and houses, neighbour-hood bars and arsenals of war, haberdasheries and jogo do bicho lottery stands and an enormous swathe of land reserved for the cemetery. But it was all still empty: there were no people.

They didn't take long. The streets collected so much dust that man had no choice but to come into being to sweep them. And in the late afternoons, to sit on the porch and moan about poverty, bad-mouth others and gaze out at the pavements stained by the sun, the buses coming back from work coating the world with dirt again.

Our narrator Camilo is now in his 50s but looking back on his teenage years. The area he lived in then, with his younger sister and parents, is, despite that opening, not part of the city slums but rather a family neighbourhood, a good distance from the favelas. Thriving shops and businesses, a bus stop outside the gate and indeed within that neighbourhood his family is at close to the top of the social pyramid, his father a doctor.

Although exactly what his father’s duties as a doctor involve only becomes clear some years later reviving Army torture victims so they could be further tortured.

One day, out of the blue, the father brings back another teenage boy Cosme to live with the family perhaps the orphaned child of one of torture victims. At first Camilo resents the intruder, but the two fall in love and have a short relationship, one that ends violently.

Formally this is a fascinating novel. The text is infused with terms particularly associated with the local dialect and the Candomblé religion, which Young judiciously leaves untranslated in some cases, providing a brief glossary for the reader. And the story is told in a playfully innovative style, including the presence of photographs and diagrams, and Young’s afterword highlights some of the key elements.

For example the author, while writing the book, invited his readers to send in their name and that of their first love, which he then worked into the text in a passage of several pages in the form of a litany of “Camilo loved Cosme as Janet loved John”. (Young’s afterword suggests reading this passage carefully rather than skimming as it contains “at least one Heringian” surprise, but I obviously didn’t read carefully enough as I failed to spot one).

In another he introduces us to his class mates, which, he claims represents all archetypes of young people and later in the book he will introduce other characters in the form of “she was a classic D.H. de M. type.”

C.B. das D. - Friend to all, didn't drink alcohol until he was eighteen. The king of cheating and copying, he never got a bad grade. As soon as he could, became a family man. Abhorred physical violence.

D.A.C.A. - Chubby and nasty. Showed off her rolls of fat like some show their middle finger. Lost weight in her teens, but not her aggressive personality, which came in handy in the workplace.

D.H. de M. - Pretty little, prim little, pale little thing, virginal. The class queen.

E.A.A. - Blonde, a mini ladies' man, first to lose his virginity. Never worked out which path to follow, which would trouble him most, because it seemed like part of him was missing. Peaked at seventeen.

E.A. dos S. - Smiled way too much. Everybody thought he was a bit simple or possibly a maniac.

E.V. - Lived with her grandfather. Obsessed with caring for others, she became a nurse. Couldn't pass the university entrance exam for medicine.

But at the same time this is a tender and tragic story.

Recommended - another wonderful novel by one of my favourite publishers and indeed the fourth highly successful translation resulting from the prize.

[od1_40reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my… 💔😥

Finished this just last night… wow, this is a special book.

Victor Heringer was a young, talented Brazilian writer, who tragically died too soon in 2018, just three weeks before his 30th birthday.

The Love of Singular Men is translated into English by James Young and has just been published by PEIRENE.

At its heart is the innocent development of a relationship between two young teenage boys, Camilo and Cosme. But the book is about so much more too. Set between Rio in the 1970s and then more currently the 2010s, it is an exploration of life in Rio in those decades, first love, first grief and revenge. It is at times both innocent and tender, but also violent, tragic and devastating.

It’s difficult to say more without giving any spoilers.

Heringer has a unique style of prose, that made me think of something like you might get if Jonathan Safran Foer and Fernanda Melchor were to both work with Nabokov. Yeah, you can imagine that right?!

Recently released, I’d urge you to seek it out. Both a beautiful and yet catastrophic novel, made all the more profound by Heringer’s tragic, untimely passing.

[Troy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in prose as dense as the sun trying to shine through a thickly smogged sky, this novel was very much the work of a tortured mind — but an excellent meditation on the darkness and brutality of society, humans, life, and death.

It’s a short novel, but it took me a few days to read in order to absorb the fine details and the complex narrative style - Heringer does so much in such little space. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while; it is a brilliantly layered work that contains multitudes.

The devastating and tragic love story between two young boys Camilo and Cosme at the center of this book for me seemed to be more of a vehicle to get to the bigger thematic elements. I would have personally liked their relationship more fleshed out but that’s my only quip to what I think is a masterful and wonderfully complex novel.

Overall: a challenging read, but the entire experience and pay off is worth it

[metempsicoso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ora che la lettura è finita, mi chiedo cosa L'amore degli uomini soli mi avrebbe suscitato se non fossi stato al corrente dell'epilogo di Heringer.
È un romanzo breve che mette in scena una vicenda d'impatto, scritta con uno stile ambizioso - audace sì, ma misurato. A tratti è asfissiante, come la calda estate brasiliana che si riproduce in sottofondo; in alcuni frangenti surreale, con quel pizzico di realismo magico radicato nel Sudamerica e gettato addosso ad una vecchina come uno scialle leggero; in altri terrificante e gotico, in una ricezione puntuale e riuscita di ciò che oggi si scrive e si elogia nell'America Meridionale.
Se alcune pagine paiono procedere un po' a tentoni, sperimentando nuove vie e nuovi modi d'inventare la scrittura, altre risuonano già mature e roboanti come colpi di grancassa.
Un fiato ti resta a metà, tra laringe e trachea, quando nella tenerezza di quell'amore innocente e infantile, tutto devozioni e sguardi e carezze e paure, saetta la realtà più bruta e violenta.
Posi L'amore degli uomini soli, dopo l'ultima facciata, con la convinzione di aver trovato un nuovo autore che merita d'essere seguito da vicino, nel corso degli anni, ad ogni uscita, fino allo zenit della sua parabola letteraria e pure un po' oltre, nei testi tardivi meno incisivi e più testamentari.

Di Victor Heringer, però, non ci sarà un altro romanzo. Si è defenestrato, nel 2018, a un'inezia dal suo trentesimo compleanno.
Si ammazza così, lanciandosi nell'aldilà attraverso un buco nel muro, solo chi è in fuga. Chi alle spalle ha mostri persino più spaventosi dell'ignoto. È un morire violento, belligerante. M'incupisce un poco.
Heringer nelle foto sospende i sorrisi.
Immagino un quaderno vuoto a metà delle molte cose ancora da dire, abbandonato sulla scrivania, mentre dalla finestra aperta si diffonde melmosa l'aria di Copacabana. La penna posata, ancora tiepida della sua carne: neanche una bella riserva d'inchiostro, a volte, è sufficiente per restare.

[3,5 stelle]

[Felipe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não sou particularmente afeito
aos remergulhos de releituras
mas era preciso dar um aperto
de mãos um abraço um afago e
era preciso que o fim fosse
próximo sempre foi era o
amor por cosmim e pelo queím
e a temperatura alta do romance
melhores palavras de adeus
e não até logo apenas tchau
era preciso matar de novo
o macho apodrecido da novela
tropical e ensinar aos pequenos
iletrados literatos o que é
o suave das costas da mão
era esse o amor dos homens
o suave das costas da mão
sendo ensinado outra vez
é isso a releitura:
o suave vivo de um amigo morto

[Andrew H · Rating 4 out of 5]

I purchased Heringer's The Love of Singular Men with Makine's My Armenian Friend without realising that these novels had much in common. Both deal with the force of early friendships and are written from the point-of-view of middle-aged men. Both novels weave in and out of their focal points, sometimes seeing with naive eyes, sometimes addressing experiences from adult perspectives. In the closing section of My Armenian Friend, Makine draws attention to the craft of writing, observing that art (especially Russian) seeks to impose wholeness, achieve an overview, and arrive at a moral conclusion. This he rejects. A story is full of holes, he argues, and art that lifts narrative to sublime understanding falsifies: life is banal and rough-edged. Heringer is more of an experimental Modernist than Makine and he draws from a tradition that exploits the novel, makes the novel admit its fictiveness, allows the author to play games and comment on the fatuity of life -- its irrationality. Reviewers have observed that Heringer (indirectly) absorbs Sterne. But they focus on the wrong part of Sterne -- the ironist of Tristram Shandy. Heringer owes more to the Sterne who wrote A Sentimental Journey and believed in the sentimental absurd: how the emotional effect of a meeting could have resonance beyond its brevity. This is at the core of The Love of Singular Men: the brief but all consuming love between Camillo (the narrator) and Cosme (Erotic Beauty).

Makine reflects on the nature of story-telling directly. Paradoxically, his attack on the moralising nature of art is rather moralising. Heringer, by contrast, builds his concerns into the fabric of the novel. All kinds of "tricks" are used. And "trick" is the correct term for macumba and African-Brazilian spirits hang over the fictional Queim where Camillo and Cosme live. Heringer is a follower of Exu/Eshu, the shape-changing Trickster and the novel is filled with changing structures: cartoons, photographs, school score cards, diary entries, playscript, six pages of notes on school friends, five pages of named pairs. (Heringer asked people to write to him and talk about their first love. Every pair of lovers is gathered into a prose poem that is a sort of Lament for Adonis with a refrain -- "like I loved my Cosme"). The novel absorbs the tradition gay coming out narrative and transforms it. "I change the channel," says Camillo at one point, conflating story-telling with the predictable act of swapping TV stations. Cliched phrases such as "a stuck record" become a narrative technique. Heringer mocks those modern minds who speak woke phrases and "want to own their narrative." What is their to own? "Why does anything happen? Because!"

In its original form, A Love of Singular Men is O Amor dos Homens Avulsos. The word "avulsos" suggests detached, half of a pair (as in shoes or trousers). Detached from Cosme, like a split androgyne in Plato's creation myth, Camillo is detached from meaning. The novel is a sort of modern quest through styles of fiction in search for meaning beyond despair. A dark theme that echoes the author's own struggle with cosmic disorder -- a darkness that led to his suicide (by falling) at the age of twenty-nine. Perhaps, the game-playing might become too much for some. At times, I was uncertain. But at the heart of the novel there is Heringer's evocative descriptions of childhood, its sensations, its erotic sensibility, and these stabilize a complex, layered, challenging novel.

[Julia Landgraf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Queria ler esse livro há alguns anos, simplesmente porque alguém tinha me dito que era bom. Nem sabia sobre o que era. A história traz muitos elementos interessantes e que me mantiveram presa e curiosa, mas acho que o livro não é bom pelo que conta, e sim pela forma que conta. A escrita de Victor Heringer é muito única e especial, e me deixou com vontade de ler mais dele.

[Marta Cava]

quina manera més tendra de narrar el primer amor, la descoberta sexual i la pèrdua. què fa tothom sense haver llegit aquest llibre! s'ha de llegir!

[Kyle C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impossible to characterize—lyrical, scathing, a coming-of-age tale, a poetic screed. Set in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, the novel is the retrospective story of a young boy, Camilo, and his first love. One day, Camilo's father brings home a young boy his own age, Cosme. At first, Camilo hates him. In his naive view, love is just physiological but hate is a nobler emotion, a "sublime and furious hunger". However, after a tussle in which they break their bones, the two boys slowly develop a tender intimacy—at first, brotherly, then erotic. Their love is hopeless: the world around them is violent and chaotic, with deadbeat husbands, political torture, surprise assassinations, unsolved murders, corpses discovered by feral dogs. Through constant narrative prolepsis, we know that their love is inevitably doomed by the city around them, a city which, in Camilo's childish eyes, seems primordial and inescapable: "in the beginning, our planet was hot, sickly yellow and stank of stale beer. The ground was boiling, clinging mud. The outer suburbs of Rio de Janeiro were the first things to come into the world, even before the volcanos and sperm whales, before Portugal invaded, before president Getulio Vargas ordered the construction of social housing". Without being melodramatic, this novel beautifully captures the tragedy of love lost in a city that feels on the verge of disintegration.

[Floflyy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lecture très touchante qui nous fait réfléchir à la notion de Premier Amour. Réalité brésilienne où règne l'homophobie et l'hypermasculinisation. J'ai adoré le roman, le changement de narration et l'épilogue aussi beau que mélancolique

[Luciana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Um livro sobre o cansaço: da humanidade e suas desumanidades, dos preconceitos, das violências, do tédio e das fraquezas que rondam os personagens e conversam com o leitor acerca da desilusão generalizada.

Há, também, durante toda a trama diversas mensagens e temas que parecem pesar a Heringer; são sutis, todavia expressam o incômodo e inconformismo com tudo o que há e no qual nos tornamos. No mais, com um enredo pesado, que não desejo descrever, o livro se auto explica, sendo a mim, uma leitura incomoda porém boa.

[Zoni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Victor Heringer é um autor insano de tão bom. Estou ainda estou tentando entender como ele conseguiu de forma tão simples escrever uma obra tão profunda, delicada, densa, e tão poética. Minhas lágrimas com certeza não foram em vão, esse texto realmente merece cada uma das minhas emoções.

Fazia um bom tempo que estava com esse volume na lista de leitura, e me arrependo de ter demorado tanto para começar a leitura. É um livro cheio de insights, narrado por um personagem que não se deslumbra com nada, que não supera uma perda brutal e violenta do seu primeiro amor, que mistura o presente com a história de sua infância, onde dois meninos se apaixonam em um subúrbio carioca durante os anos 70, em um romance improvável entre duas pessoas completamente improváveis. É um relato honesto sobre a vida, sobre as lembranças, os momentos vivenciados, as descobertas, cheio de surpresas e reviravoltas muitas vezes desconcertantes.

Não que pareça com Me Chame Pelo Seu Nome, mas me remeteu sim, quando o autor faz o retrato de um subúrbio que nos conecta com a inquietação provocada pelo calor, pelos dias de férias e pela juventude desses meninos se odiando no início e se apaixonando depois. Com certeza uma das melhores leituras do ano, indico com força, leiam.

[Alfredo Pagoto · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Siempre he sabido que no había venido a este mundo para estar en él, sino para haber estado, haber sido, haber hecho. Nací póstumamente".

[Piesito · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una voz narrativa muy juguetona

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this is a case of expectations not met, rather than anything intrinsically wrong with the book itself. I was expecting more of the gay aspect to be foregrounded, and it is really a very minor part of the work as a whole. Basically, it seems just another portrait of the slums of Rio, and the disjointed nature of the writing (maybe the fault of the translation?) meant that I never felt fully invested or interested in any of the characters and found it hard to understand exactly who everyone was or what was going on for much of the time. I doubt I'll have much memory of it past the next week.

[Felipe Beirigo · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKO DEMAIS! UM MANO, UM AMOR, VÁRIAS FITA DA SOCIEDADE, UM CADÁVER, MASCULINO FEMININO, UMAS FOTINHA. CHORA ANNIE ERNAUX.

[Regan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounding up—in awe of the way Peirene Press consistently publishes novellas unlike anything I’ve ever read before, there’s one dream-like, uncertain scene in particular, near to the end, that made my jaw drop. I also think the scenes where the narrator is in his fifties carry a certain weight knowing that the author passed away in 2018 at age 29

There were also moments of this one, re: style, characters, and content, that made me think of it as a very adult Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, and I mean that in the best way

[Tim Power · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short novel that packs a powerful punch.

[Amanda Lemes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ai, tá sendo bem difícil avaliar esse livro e vou explicar o porquê. Eu amei completamente a escrita, não sei nem expressar o quão deleitada fiquei com o estilo do Victor. É coisa simples, mas bastante poética, gostosa e criativa. Amei também que o livro não se prende apenas à comunicação verbal, ele apresenta fotos, desenhos e outras coisinhas inventivas ao longo da história que complementam muito bem. Outro fator que me agradou bastante é que a história soa bastante familiar, num sentido de coisa próxima, não de já se ter ouvido coisas parecidas. A ambientação do livro se apoia muito na cidade do Rio, demais mesmo, e isso me deixou extremamente confortável com a história. Sou mineira, mas morei 3 anos no Rio (agora estou em Niterói) e acho que essa vivência contribuiu muito. Mas a história traz também lembranças de experiências mais gerais dos brasileiros, como quando cita-se uma reportagem na TV falando sobre a queda do avião do candidato à presidência Eduardo Campos. Foi bem doido perceber que já tem uns bons pares de anos que isso aconteceu (parece que foi ontem mesmo) e me sentir ali vivendo a história também.

A grande questão é: eu não gostei do plot. Quer dizer, isso não chega bem a ser verdade. A ideia da descoberta da própria sexualidade durante o período da ditadura militar, o primeiro amor, a perda desse amor e como isso tem efeito na vida subsequente me soa como algo bem interessante. Mas de alguma forma, não foi. Gostei da naturalidade com que os personagens foram descobrindo e desbravando a sexualidade deles, mas, mesmo assim, eu não conseguia me importar menos com eles. Na real, eu não tava me importando com nenhum personagem, e tava desinteressada por toda a narrativa, só queria que acabasse logo (a qualidade da escrita foi o que me sustentou até o final). O livro é tão pequeno, normalmente leria algo do seu tamanho em um dia, duas sentadas. Mas dessa vez eu me vi com dificuldades, não sabia nem se terminaria mesmo. De certa forma, resistir até o final compensou um pouquinho, porque o livro tem uma 2a parte, que achei melhorzinha, me prendeu mais, mas ela é muito curtinha (acho que menos de 1/3 do todo).

Resumindo a ópera: não indicaria O Amor dos Homens Avulsos assim, de forma conscienciosa, para qualquer um. Talvez indicaria para um carioca nato ou de coração, para ver o retrato da sua terrinha; e para alguém que esteja procurando uma escrita nacional criativa, fácil de ler e contemporânea (mas sem pretensões de encontrar uma história incrível).

[Julia Coppa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muito difícil construir essa história sem pensar na história do Victor – ainda mais por falar tanto de vida e morte, implicitamente e não.

Realmente tiveram momentos que precisei fechar o livro e respirar um tantinho por uns segundos, me tocou muito. Como falar de pessoas avulsas que contêm uma humanidade visceral dentro delas? Victor consegue. Foi meu primeiro contato com o autor e já me fez criar laços de carinhos eterno. Você ouve por ai que ler os livros do Victor é isso, parece que você já conhece ele ou que ele te conhece, é muito doido. No fim ele fala sobre isso no livro, também. As pessoas são todas categorizáveis, com algumas pequenas variações – e ai segue uma lista. É assustador, mas te deixe inclinado a acreditar.

O quão complexo todo mundo é, de fato? Talvez nossas complexidades tenham uma afinidade enorme e a gente nem perceba, avulsos, nesse mundaréu de semelhantes.

[Santiago Sasco · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Yo le caía bien a Maria Aína porque nací igual que ella, con el cordón umbilical enrollado en el cuello. Años más tarde, días antes de morir, me dijo: los que nacen así es porque van a estar siempre al borde del precipicio, ossí Camilo'.

'Siempre he sabido que no había venido a este mundo para estar en él, sino para haber estado, a haber sido, haber hecho. Nací póstumamente. Fui un mortinato en los brazos de mi madre, estrangulado por el cordón umbilical, morado, moradísimo; el médico tuvo que hacerme el boca a boca. Mi primer beso. Casi me libro de la molestia de haber nacido. De ahí en adelante, fue la terquedad de la sangre lo que me mantuvo con vida'.

[Sephreadstoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

LA TEMPERATURA DI QUESTO ROMANZO È SUPERIORE A 31°C

Non tutti i mali vengono per nuocere. Il mio lungo silenzio su IG a causa del ritmo troppo frenetico non mi ha permesso di postare alcuni contenuti per il Pride Month che avevo preparato, tra cui il libro di cui vi vorrei parlare oggi, ma non si può parlare di questo titolo senza menzionare il caldo afoso che lo permea in ogni sua riga, quindi, a conti fatti, il ritardo gioca a suo favore.

Il caldo di questi giorni ricalca un po' l'afa delle strade brasiliane di cui si parla in L'Amore Degli Uomini Soli. Lo stesso autore, Victor Heringer, ci avverte nell'incipit che "la temperatura di questo romanzo è sempre superiore ai 31 °C".

Siamo in Brasile, nel 1976, in piena dittatura. Tra le strade afose di Rio de Janeiro, nel quartiere di Queím, che ancora oggi si trova nelle guide turistiche come una meta da evitare per la sua pericolosità, si intrecciano le vite del narratore, Camilo, giovane con una deformità alla gamba e figlio di uno stimato dottore, e Cosme, quasi suo coetaneo, ma con una storia completamente diversa alle spalle.

È il padre di Camilo che porta Cosme nella loro villa, con il fantasma della collusione con la dittatura sulle mani e la certezza di aver mandato in frantumi il suo matrimonio.

I due ragazzi non possono prevedere che nel giro di un'estate la loro vita sarebbe cambiata per sempre. Uscendo dalla sicurezza della villa grazie a Cosme e al giro di ragazzi di strada, Camilo si avvicina a Cosme fino ad intrecciare con lui un primo amore che ricorderà per tutta la vita, anche quando, quarant'anni dopo, cercherà riparo dalla solitudine autoimposta (e dall'espiazione della sua rabbia), nella persona che meno avrebbe pensato di trovare in quelle stesse strade dal marciapiede che si squaglia dal caldo estivo.

Victor Heringer, stella cometa della letteratura brasiliana, tradotto in italiano da Safara Editrice, scomparso su1c1da a meno di trent'anni, ha saputo scrivere un romanzo quasi dal tono elegiaco; la solitudine, palpabile come la cappa di afa, è lo spettro che permea il libro, ma gli sprazzi di ironia tagliente, non lo rendono affatto un libro piatto, anzi.

[Miguel Blanco Herreros · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es difícil puntuar esta obra, la verdad. Por una parte, demuestra un notable dominio de la técnica literaria, pues consigue construir su narración mediante fórmulas bastante experimentales, que dotan a la novela de una voz muy única e identificable. Sin embargo, eso también puede ser su principal punto débil: si no consigues seguir el flujo del estilo de Heringer es muy fácil que desconectes de la historia, que te resulte lejana y desordenada.

Limitándonos a la trama y personajes, en general me ha gustado y me parece todo bien construido, pero es cierto que he tenido la sensación de que funcionaban mejor las partes del pasado que las del presente de Camilo. En general, el estilo que usa Heringer fuerza una cierta sensación de otredad, de estar viendo desde fuera, lo cual es estimulante literariamente hablando, pero repercute en la capacidad empática del relato. La verdad es que no he conseguido vincularme en exceso a los personajes, en especial a Cosme, que se plantea casi desdibujado (imagino que porque el autor intenta imitar la memoria de Camilo, no lo sé).

En definitiva, un resultado algo desigual. No me arrepiento de haberlo leído, pero tampoco me ha dejado con ganas de más.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An obvious Pessoa acolyte.
Tenderness alongside violence.
Weary cynicism of life.
Translated from Portuguese by James Young.
Flashes of brilliance from a promising young Brazilian author but unfortunately we will never know what his writing could have developed into.
3.75⭐️

I found this review of Heringer's writing quite illuminating https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/pos...

Content warning in addition to the others listed below: extremely disturbing scene involving a dead dog
Other CW:
Graphic: Blood, Murder, Violence, Animal cruelty, Ableism, and Animal death

Moderate: Homophobia and Sexual violence

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books)]

One of the strangest things about me, at least as a reader, is that I'm completely and utterly disinterested in reading about murder, at least the non-political kind. I can get engrossed in a war novel or a story about genocide or hate crimes, sure, but run-of-the-mill crimes of passion or whatever just bore me to tears. And revenge too: what a soporific theme.

I hope I haven't spoiled anything about the book. The writing was exquisite. But even the crisp, startling prose couldn't keep me awake. At the halfway point, I put the book down and now it's time for a nap.

[an Anna Blume]

mir inhaltlich wie formal zu experimentell.

[Bill Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sometimes sweet, but mostly sad queer coming-of-age/mid-life reckoning (yes, it’s both) novel…but with deeper themes and impact due to its Brazilian setting and the history and culture of that country—all of this figures into the story in especially significant ways. The writing is lyrical, elegiac, and often moving (commendations to the translator, as the narrative isn’t at all stilted or awkward as translations so frequently are). It’s very short but still has an emotional punch. I recommend.

[Gabrielle Cunha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Que leitura mais melancólica, bonita, forte.

Victor tinha uma escrita muito peculiar mesmo. Aquele tipo de livro que você termina e fica obcecada, quer ler tudo que ele escreveu.

[Rick Lupert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Victor Heringers Buch "Die Liebe vereinzelter Männer" ist aus mehreren Gründen besonders: der tragischste davon ist, dass sich der Autor kurz vor seinem dreißigsten Geburtstag das Leben genommen hat, also den Erfolg und die Übersetzung des Romans nicht mehr mitbekam. Der wichtigste ist, dass der Roman einer der schönsten, wahrsten, schmerzhaftesten ist, die letztes Jahr auf Deutsch herausgekommen sind, und das im kleinen März Verlag in der Übersetzung von Maria Hummitzsch. Ein weiterer Grund ist seine Form, die einfallsreich und innovativ ist, die Fotos, Handschriften, Listen, die seine poetische Sprache durchbrechen. Heringer ist mit Camilo ein Erzähler gelungen, der trotz seines Hasses auf die Welt unglaublich zärtlich von seiner ersten Liebe Cosme schreiben kann. Gleichzeitig ist er ein Feigling, der von seinem Vater, einem vermutlich grausamen Folterarzt während der brasilianischen Militärdikatur nur andeutungsweise spricht: ein Kunstgriff, durch den der Liebesgeschichte eine untergründige gesellschaftliche Dimension verliehen wird, die weit über den Freundeskreis der beiden Jungen und weit über die äußerst poetischen Beschreibungen Rio de Janeiros hinausgeht. Durch die Verschränkung zweier Zeitebenen - der Erinnerungen des Erzählers an seine Jugendliebe und der Gegenwart, aus der sich zurückerinnert wird - erschafft Heringer einen runden, tragischen, komplexen Ich-Erzähler, der abgehärtet wirkt und manchmal zynisch ist, aber der doch Sinn im Leben findet, obwohl ihm so viel genommen wurde. Ein Juwel von einem Roman - Zadie Smith hat Recht damit, ihn mit Cortázar und Nabokov zu vergleichen. "Die Liebe vereinzelter Männer" ist dankenswerter Weise das Gegenteil von verlogener queer joy, und grade deshalb umso heilsamer. Es ist eine Schande, dass Heringer nicht mehr ist, dass er uns bloß zwei Romane hinterlassen hat, und dass man ihm nicht mehr helfen kann - den Gefallen, den er uns mit diesem Buch gemacht hat, nicht erwidern kann.