At Night We Walk in Circles: A Novel (Paperback)

Staff Pick Badge
At Night We Walk in Circles: A Novel By Daniel Alarcón Cover Image

At Night We Walk in Circles: A Novel (Paperback)

By Daniel Alarcón

$18.00


Email or call for price.

December 2013 Indie Next List

“Set in an unnamed South American country years after a protracted civil war has ended, At Night We Walk in Circles chronicles the life and dark fate of Nelson, a bright and promising young man who joins a small guerrilla theatre group. Nelson and the group's two founders, one of whom is a psychically battle-scarred casualty of the political conflict, bring their play, The Idiot President, to villages in the countryside and mountains, looking for escape, renewal, and perhaps redemption. The village that is the troupe's final destination holds deep secrets, and an innocent and kind act results in a shocking outcome. Alarcon is a genius, and this novel is a work of brilliance.”
— Cathy Langer, Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, CO

Staff Reviews

Brilliant. Just brilliant. With this second novel, Alarcon demonstrates why he was named one of The New Yorker's 20 Writers Under 40 to Watch. Fans of Roberto Bolano and Junot Diaz take note.

— Cody

Brilliant. Just brilliant. With this second novel, Alarcon demonstrates why he was named one of The New Yorker's 20 Writers Under 40 to Watch. Fans of Roberto Bolano and Junot Diaz take note.

— From Cody's 2016 and older picks

The breakout novel from a prizewinning young writer: a “surrealistic tour de force” (O, The Oprah Magazine) about one man’s obsessive search to find the truth of another man’s downfall.

Nelson’s life is not turning out the way he hoped. His girlfriend is sleeping with another man; his brother has left their South American country, leaving Nelson to care for their widowed mother; and his acting career can’t seem to get off the ground. That is, until he lands a starring role in a touring revival of The Idiot President, a legendary play by Nelson’s hero, Henry Nuñez, leader of the storied guerrilla theater troupe Diciembre. And that’s when the real trouble begins.

Nelson’s fate is slowly revealed through the investigation of the narrator, a young man obsessed with Nelson’s story—and perhaps closer to it than he lets on. In sharp, vivid, and beautiful prose, Alarcón delivers a compulsively readable narrative and a provocative meditation on fate, identity, and the large consequences that can result from even our smallest choices.
Daniel Alarcón is the author of the collection The King Is Always Above the People, longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction, the novel At Night We Walk in Circles, which was a finalist for the 2014 PEN-Faulkner Award, as well as the story collection War by Candlelight and the novel Lost City Radio. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Granta, n+1, and Harpers, and he was named one of the New Yorker's "20 under 40" and a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship. He is Executive Producer of Radio Ambulante, and teaches at the Columbia University School of Journalism in New York.
Categories
Product Details ISBN: 9781594632839
ISBN-10: 1594632839
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Publication Date: September 2nd, 2014
Pages: 384
Language: English
Praise for At Night We Walk in Circles

“Wise and engaging . . . [a] layered, gorgeously nuanced work.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Consistently compelling . . . Alarcón’s smoothly polished prose [is] flecked with wit and surprisingly epigraphic phrases . . . with lines that knock the wind out of you.”
—The Washington Post

“Outstanding . . . a work that creates a multilayered world and invites you to enter it.”
—Los Angeles Times

“Masterful . . . a sterling novel . . . brave, thoughtful and astute . . . elegant in its construction, it feels perfectly suited to bring Alarcón’s tremendous talent to a wider audience.”
—The Miami Herald 

“Compelling . . . an intellectual puzzle.”
—The Boston Globe