Blood-Drenched Beard

Blood-Drenched Beard is Daniel Galera's gripping, visceral, fast and atmospheric English-language debut. 
 
 His father shoots himself, and all he's left with is the old cattle dog and a vague desire for explanation. He loves swimming so he travels to Garopaba, a quiet little town on the Brazilian coast, where his grandfather disappeared in mysterious, possibly brutal, circumstances decades before. 
 
 There, in the midst of romantic flings and occasional trips, he comes to discover more than he could ever have imagined - not just about his grandfather, but also about himself. 
 
 'Coolly seductive . . . a tensely atmospheric novel whose glassy surface conceals a dangerous undertow' Guardian 
 
 'Make sure you buy this book before the summer is over. A page turner which pulls it punches in all the right places, it is witty, modern and deceptively emotional - with lots of flirting and swimming to add to the mix' Deborah Levy 
 
 'Succeeds in creating an unsettling contrast between the beauty of this sleepy paradise and its sinister underbelly . . . an honest, disturbing portrait of a town that is, we discover, a predatory place at its heart' Financial Times 
 
 Daniel Galera was born in Sao Paulo in 1979. He co-founded the influential publishing house Livros do Mal, and has translated David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith and Irvine Welsh into Brazilian Portuguese. He has published a collection of short stories and three novels, as well as an acclaimed graphic novel (with Rafael Coutinho). 
 
 Alison Entrekin's translations include City of God by Paulo Lins; The Eternal Son by Cristovão Tezza, and Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector.

[A] dark, twisting thriller . . . one of the year's best offerings

Succeeds in creating an unsettling contrast between the beauty of this sleepy paradise and its sinister underbelly . . . an honest, disturbing portrait of a town that is, we discover, a predatory place at its heart

Coolly seductive . . .   a tensely atmospheric novel whose glassy surface conceals a dangerous undertow. The silences in this Everytown are as corrosive as the salty air

Budding-genius material . . . an intriguing mystery and study in isolation set on the stunning coast of [Galera's] steamy country

Utterly brilliant. I loved every single page. Galera is an extraordinary writer and this is a beautiful book. He sees the essential truths in his characters, and through them he sees those truths in us

Make sure you buy this book before the summer is over. A page turner which pulls it punches in all the right places, it is witty, modern and deceptively emotional - with lots of flirting and swimming to add to the mix

His father shoots himself, and all he's left with is the old cattle dog and a vague desire for explanation. He loves swimming so he travels to Garopaba, a quiet little town on the Brazilian coast, where his grandfather disappeared in mysterious, possibly brutal, circumstances decades before. 
 
There, in the midst of romantic flings and occasional trips, he comes to discover more than he could ever have imagined - not just about his grandfather, but also about himself.

Daniel Galera

Alison Entrekin

Impressive, visceral and tender . . . A work of art whose echoes persist long after the final page

Masterful, compelling and stylish . . . Galera draws so much life into a single line, leading beyond the pages of the book and out to the horizon

Barney Norris, author of 'Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain'

Ferociously intelligent... A tense, atmospheric meditation on the hypnotic pull of the past. Daniel Galera is a thrilling writer, and this novel is nothing short of essential

Publisher's description.  A visceral coming-of-age story set against a backdrop of violence and turbulent desire in the blistering Brazilian suburbs. Taut with the threat of sex and savagery, this is a book about bodies and their limits, about how it feels to be young and what it means to become a man.

Daniel Galera understands that violence is mysteriously capable of restoring a person to reality and  preparing him to meet his moment of grace. His characters bear life's inevitable weight of guilt and shame, all the while striving to resolve the fearful events of the past

Susanna Moore, author of 'The Life of Objects'

Vividly radiates a sense of unease and menace. I found myself constantly absorbed by it

Coolly seductive, expansively mythic, with an unsettling sense of something indefinably out of joint beneath a veneer of small-town normality. . . . A tensely atmospheric novel [with] a dangerous undertow

A man rises at 5am and silently leaves his home. He starts his car - its trunk filled with survival gear - and glides through the sleeping streets of Porto Alegre, haunted by ghosts of past selves: the fearless boy riding a battered stunt bike, the silent adolescent fascinated by bodies and violence, the obsessive young surgeon, the distant husband. 
 
As dawn breaks and people slowly fill the streets, the man finds himself driving back to his childhood home. What is pulling him there? Perhaps the need to make something happen, perhaps just nostalgia. Or perhaps the search for absolution - for a secret crime he has carried in his heart for fifteen years.

Daniel Galera

Praise for The Shape of Bones

Impressive, visceral and tender . . . A work of art whose echoes persist long after the final page

Masterful, compelling and stylish . . . Galera draws so much life into a single line, leading beyond the pages of the book and out to the horizon

Ferociously intelligent... A tense, atmospheric meditation on the hypnotic pull of the past. Daniel Galera is a thrilling writer, and this novel is nothing short of essential

Impressive, visceral and tender . . . A work of art whose echoes persist long after the final page

Masterful, compelling and stylish . . . Galera draws so much life into a single line, leading beyond the pages of the book and out to the horizon

Ferociously intelligent... A tense, atmospheric meditation on the hypnotic pull of the past. Daniel Galera is a thrilling writer, and this novel is nothing short of essential

Impressive, visceral and tender . . . A work of art whose echoes persist long after the final page

Masterful, compelling and stylish . . . Galera draws so much life into a single line, leading beyond the pages of the book and out to the horizon

Ferociously intelligent... A tense, atmospheric meditation on the hypnotic pull of the past. Daniel Galera is a thrilling writer, and this novel is nothing short of essential

Books by Daniel Galera

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