Good Offices

by Evelio Rosero, Anna Milsom (Translator), Anne McLean (Translator)

Overview

A beautifully poetic and vivid satire of the hypocrisies of the Catholic Church.

Tancredo, a young hunchback, observes and participates in the rites at the Catholic church where he lives under the care of Father Almida. Also in residence are the sexton Celeste Machado, his goddaughter Sabina Cruz, and three widows known collectively as the Lilias, who do the cooking and cleaning and provide charity meals for the local poor and needy. One Thursday, Father Almida and the sexton must rush off to meet the parish’s principal benefactor, Don Justiniano. It will be the first time in forty years Father Almida has not said mass. Eventually they find a replacement: Father Matamoros, a drunkard with a beautiful voice whose sung mass is spellbinding to all. The Lilias prepare a sumptuous meal for Father Matamoros, who persuades them to drink with him. Over the course of the long night the women and Tancredo lose their inhibitions and confess their sins and stories to this strange priest, and in the process re- veal lives crippled by hypocrisy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780811219518
Publisher:	New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	09/13/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	144
File size:	515 KB

About the Author

Evelio Rosero was born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1958. He was awarded Colombia’s National Literature Prize by the Ministry of Culture in 2006 for his body of work, which includes several novels, short story collections, and books for young readers and children. The Armies, Rosero’s first novel to be translated into English, won the Tusquets International Prize and the 2009 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.
Anna Milsom, b. 1951, is an acclaimed experimental artist.
Anne McLean lives in Toronto and has translated the works of authors including Javier Cercas, Julio Cortázar, and Juan Gabriel Vásquez, and Enrique Vila-Matas.

Editorial Reviews

In his second novel translated into English, award-winning Rosero (The Armies) documents a night in the life of hunchback and charity worker Tancredo, a man whose church conceals underhanded activities. Despite the simple premise—a parish priest and sacristan's departure results in the evening service being performed by the eccentric, vocally talented Father Matamoros—this slim work becomes a lively enactment of the idiom "When the cat's away, the mice will play," as well as a sobering look at resentment. When the employees who remain behind (including Sabina, the three Lilias, and Tancredo) reveal their displeasure as overworked individuals, among other confessions, they expose the underside of institutionalized care. Fans of Hispanophone literature will appreciate Bogotá serving as the backdrop for simmering passions as well as Catholic corruption. The opening section detailing Tancredo's weekly duties is especially noteworthy; McLean and Milsom perfectly portray the chaotic, yet mundane atmosphere. Character-driven, focused, and determined in its study of appearance versus reality, this social commentary is rendered with colorful aplomb. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Evelio Rosero has quickly become one of my favorite authors and Anne McLean one of my favorite translators. I picked up Rosero's latest short novel Good Offices and couldn't put it down. It is a dark and satirical look at the Catholic church, the politics of Colombia and the perceived worth we put on human life. And yet it is funny. The main character is a hunchback who is extremely smart and perceptive and not your typical Catholic hunchback. After finishing Good Offices I immediately (against my normal reading practices) read the first novel of Rosero's that New Directions translated in 2010, The Armies. This book kicked my ass. I have passed it on to others, and the response has been unanimous - this is a haunting masterpiece of writing and translation - everyone should read this book. Again Rosero writes of a small town in Columbia, this time it is a town caught in the middle of a war. Soldiers, paramilitaries, and guerrillas treat Bojayá and it's people as if they are nothing but a receptacle for their violence. Despite atrocities this book contains, you are constantly held by the stunning imagery and voice that Rosero brings to The Armies. This is the best book I read in 2011."

The Green Apple Core

"Rosero’s colourful cast of characters will remain in your memory long after the final page is turned, particularly those whose outward appearance belies their inner turmoil…Just as The Armies depicted the chaos that erupts in a rural town besieged by violence, Good Offices focuses on a small, insular community, in order to highlight a wider malaise. Rosero’s evocative prose is lucidly translated by Anne Mclean and Anna Milsom, and his darkly comic satire hits its mark with an unsettling ferocity."

Latineos - Lucy Popescu

"Translated into a dozen European languages, published by the finest houses in Spain and Latin America, praised by critics, studied in universities, Rosero’s dark worlds have managed to reach a wide audience. He is an oddity indeed, a writer who in spite of the considerable recognition he has attained has never come out of hiding. . . . Rosero affirms unashamedly that literature can and should change social reality, and that this is one of its main functions."

Bomb

"The stringent satire, with nods to Victor Hugo, never eclipses the fragile dilemmas of the put-upon acolyte, while the novel hints at a wider web of sinister power and patronage that entails cocaine, corruption and, above all, fear. The translation is sublime. Moving from offbeat humour to soaring spiritual ecstasy, it has both pathos and punch."

The Guardian