The Gravedigger

by Peter Grandbois

Book Overview

"Reminiscent of the work of Luis Alberto Urrea and Gabriel Garca Mrquez (Booklist), this enchanting first novelnow in paperbackwas an Original Voices feature at Borders and a Discover Great New... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811853500
• ISBN13: 9780811853507
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A stunning, beautiful work

I just finished reading 'The Gravedigger' last night --a stunning, beautiful work. Grandbois balances humor and sadness in the perfect proportions. This Juan Rodrigo is such a wonderful, devoted, blessed/accursed and pitiable character; I want to buy him a drink and get him to tell me more of his stories. I enjoyed watching the dynamic between him and his daughter Esperanza change as she got older, as she began to blossom into the green flower she was meant to be. The parting of people as they grow older is often more sad than than the parting that comes with death, because when a person is dead, there's a finality that cannot be denied, but when the person still lives, there's this lingering sense of loss or failure or powerlessness. This book captures both. But this novel is also lighthearted and quite hilarious at times. The conspiring birds were a hoot! I loved watching that dandy get splattered. Rosalia was a very strong character, one of my favs, with her oddities and rough but tender qualities, and of course, her restorative soups. I could go on, but I don't want to deprive the reader of experiencing the wonders of this book for themselves.

This book will linger in your mind!

Start with the simple facts. The novel is set in the Andalucia region of Spain. Its central character is Juan Rodrigo, a gravedigger who lives in a small village. He can see and talk to ghosts. His wife Carlota died during childbirth, and Rodrigo misses and remembers her through a slow, painful trickle of grief. He has a daughter, Esperanza, who is a delightful spitfire both envious of her father's relationship with the ghosts she initially cannot see and stubborn enough to enter a reckless romance with a gypsy boy. Woven together, these facts are more than enough substance for a satisfying story. Yet what sets this novel apart is its simple love of storytelling, storytelling in all its manifestations and varieties. In his press materials, Grandbois reveals the novel's debt to his eldest daughter. Father and daughter apparently engaged for years in a collaborative storytelling ritual, and Grandbois brings that experience into fruition here with joyful experimentation. Every person has a complicated story, this novel demonstrates, and every story can be told in an infinite number of ways. Grandbois also uses the natural beauty of his setting and a smorgasbord of folklore and culture for good effect in this novel. His descriptive passages rely on the carefully selected detail, the satisfying metaphor, or the finely honed image. Consider this passage: "The rocks stood silent, but the poplars and pines, having a greater understanding of the sorrow of loss, groaned with the effort of bending their great trunks, if only to be a bit nearer to the man kneeling upon the cliff face." The narrative structure and carefully crafted sentences offer enough reasons to appreciate this novel, but its focus on each person's small but intensely felt drama of life and its compassionate portrayals of imperfect people make the book distinctive. Armchair Interviews says: The Gravedigger will linger as a ghost in your memory long after you finish it, and rather than evoking terror, this book's ghost will tell you interesting stories.

Captivating

I thouroughly enjoyed The Gravedigger. The colorful characters were so interesting and real, I found myself thinking of them long after I put the book down. This is a book I'll read again just to reaquaint myself with main characters, Juan and Esperanza Rodrigo, and to revisit the subjects of truth and how life continues beyond the earthly. It was a compelling and fun read!