This tour de force demonstrates forcefully why Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho is reputed to be the bestselling author in the world. All the events in The Winner Stands Alone transpire in a single day at the Cannes International Film Festival. Igor, an affluent Russian businessman with a terrifying history of violence, descends on this festive scene, intent on reuniting with his adulterous ex-wife or exacting revenge on her and her new lover. In the midst of this chaotic celebrity circus, he pursues his mission, darting through a motley cast of partiers and bit players. Mixing social satire and sheer panic, this fast-paced thriller drives to its breathtaking conclusion, leaving us amazed that the author of The Alchemist would also be capable of this.
The Winner Stands Alone
Narrated by Paul Boehmer
Paulo CoelhoUnabridged — 12 hours, 29 minutes
The Winner Stands Alone
Narrated by Paul Boehmer
Paulo CoelhoUnabridged — 12 hours, 29 minutes
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Overview
“[Coelho's] special talent seems to be his ability to speak to everyone at once. The kind of spirituality he espouses is to all comers. . . . His readers often say that they see their own lives in his own books.”
-New Yorker
From the bestselling author of The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho, comes an absorbing new novel that holds a mirror up to our culture's obsession with fame, glamour, and celebrity.
In this absorbing new novel, Paulo Coelho holds a mirror up to our culture's obsession with fame, glamour, and celebrity, exploring the dark side of winning and the toll it takes on the human psyche.
HarperCollins 2024
Editorial Reviews
Coelho's latest blends spiritual allegory with elements of a thriller and does not lend itself to an easy audio production. Paul Boehmer singlehandedly tackles a cast of characters with a wide spectrum of languages and ethnic identities. The action surrounds 24 fateful hours at the Cannes Film Festival, as Igor kills off members of an elite “superclass” in a sociopathic rage against his ex-wife, Ewa. Boehmer provides a carefully constructed accent and speech pattern to his portrayal of Igor, and delivers an equally impressive turn as Ewa's current spouse, a Middle Eastern fashion mogul. Yet other principal figures in the story—particularly the female characters—do not receive the same attention to vocal detail; consequently, the dialogue exchanges sound uneven. A Harper hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 9). (Apr.)
New York Times best-selling author Coelho's (www.paulocoelho.com) 12th novel, following The Witch of Portobello (2007), is a gritty, bleak, 24-hour panorama of the Cannes Film Festival that skewers the beautiful people of cinema and high fashion. Audie Award nominee Paul Boehmer's (Moby-Dick) rich renderings of the wonderfully complex secondary characters are the highlight of Coelho's latest work, which is quite a departure from his trademark mystical parables. Best suited for appreciators of literary fiction and perhaps also psychological thriller fans. [Audio clip available through www.blackstoneaudio.com; the Harper hc was described as "a timely critique of the degeneration of the world's societal mores," LJ 3/1/09.—Ed.]—Beth Farrell, Portage Cty. Dist. Lib., Garrettsville, OH
[This] Brazilian wizard makes books disappear from stores.” — New York Times
“[Coelho’s] special talent seems to be his ability to speak to everyone at once. The kind of spirituality he espouses is to all comers. . . . His readers often say that they see their own lives in his own books.” — The New Yorker
“[Coelho’s] special talent seems to be his ability to speak to everyone at once. . . . His readers often say that they see their own lives in his own books.” — The New Yorker
[Coelho’s] special talent seems to be his ability to speak to everyone at once…His readers often say that they see their own lives in his books.”
[This] Brazilian wizard makes books disappear from stores.”
[Coelho’s] special talent seems to be his ability to speak to everyone at once. The kind of spirituality he espouses is to all comers. . . . His readers often say that they see their own lives in his own books.
[Coelho’s] special talent seems to be his ability to speak to everyone at once. The kind of spirituality he espouses is to all comers. . . . His readers often say that they see their own lives in his own books.
Paul Coelho has been to the Cannes Film Festival—and apparently didn't like it. Here he creates a psychopathic Russian zillionaire bent on killing random people during the festival in order to get his ex-wife back. How serial murder is to accomplish this is murky, and Coelho is too busy disdainfully telling (not showing) what film and fashion worlds are like, according to him, to make his (too) many characters, jaded celebrities, and hopeful wannabes real. So what suspense one feels as to who will live or die is largely created by Paul Boehmer's sympathetic narration. Boehmer occasionally loses focus in the middle of a sentence, but otherwise earnestly labors to create some recognizable people in this uncomfortable welter of nihilism and celebrity dirt. B.G. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940173469892 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Publication date: | 04/07/2009 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
The Winner Stands Alone
Chapter One
3:17 A.M.
The Beretta Px4 compact pistol is slightly larger than a mobile phone, weighs around seven hundred grams, and can fire ten shots. It is small, light, invisible when carried in a pocket, and its small caliber has one enormous advantage: instead of passing through the victim's body, the bullet hits bones and smashes everything in its path.
Obviously, the chances of surviving a shot of that caliber are fairly high; there are thousands of cases in which no vital artery was severed and the victim had time to react and disarm his attacker. However, if the person firing the pistol is experienced enough, he can opt either for a quick death—by aiming at the point between the eyes or at the heart—or for a slower one—by placing the barrel at a certain angle close to the ribs and squeezing the trigger. The person shot takes a while to realize that he has been mortally wounded and tries to fight back, run away, or call for help. The great advantage of this is that the victim has time to see his killer's face, while his strength ebbs slowly away and he falls to the ground, with little external loss of blood, still not fully understanding why this is happening to him.
It is far from being the ideal weapon for experts. "Nice and light—in a lady's handbag. No stopping power though," someone in the British Secret Service tells James Bond in the first film in the series, meanwhile confiscating Bond's old pistol and handing him a new model. However, that advice applied only to professionals, and for what he now had in mind it was perfect.
He had bought the Beretta onthe black market so that it would be impossible to trace. There are five bullets in the magazine, although he intends to use only one, the tip of which he has marked with an "X," using a nail file. That way, when it's fired and hits something solid, it will break into four pieces.
He will only use the Beretta as a last resort. There are other ways of extinguishing a world, of destroying a universe, and she will probably understand the message as soon as the first victim is found. She will know that he did it in the name of love, and that he feels no resentment, but will take her back and ask no questions about her life during these past two years.
He hopes that six months of careful planning will produce results, but he will only know for sure tomorrow morning. His plan is to allow the Furies, those ancient figures from Greek mythology, to descend on their black wings to that blue-and-white landscape full of diamonds, Botox, and high-speed cars of no use to anyone because they carry only two passengers. With the little artifacts he has brought with him, all those dreams of power, success, fame, and money could be punctured in an instant.
He could have gone up to his room because the scene he had been waiting to witness occurred at 11:11 P.M., although he would have been prepared to wait for even longer. The man and his beautiful companion arrived—both of them in full evening dress—for yet another of those gala events that take place each night after every important supper, and which attracted more people than any film première at the Festival.
Igor ignored the woman. He shielded his face behind a French newspaper (a Russian newspaper would have aroused suspicions) so that she wouldn't see him. An unnecessary precaution: like all women who feel themselves to be queen of the world, she never looked at anyone else. Such women are there in order to shine and always avoid looking at what other people are wearing because, even if their own clothes and accessories have cost them a fortune, the number of diamonds or a particularly exclusive outfit worn by someone else might make them feel depressed or bad-tempered or inferior.
Her elegant, silver-haired companion went over to the bar and ordered champagne, a necessary aperitif for a night that promised new contacts, good music, and a fine view of the beach and the yachts moored in the harbor.
He noticed how extremely polite the man was, thanking the waitress when she brought their drinks and giving her a large tip.
The three of them knew each other. Igor felt a great wave of happiness as the adrenaline began to mingle with his blood. The following day he would make her fully aware of his presence there and, at some point, they would meet.
God alone knew what would come of that meeting. Igor, an orthodox Catholic, had made a promise and sworn an oath in a church in Moscow before the relics of St. Mary Magdalene (which were in the Russian capital for a week, so that the faithful could worship them). He had queued for nearly five hours and, when he finally saw them, had felt sure that the whole thing was something dreamed up by the priests. He did not, however, want to run the risk of breaking his word, and so he had asked for her protection and help in achieving his goal without too much sacrifice. And he had promised, too, that when it was all over and he could at last return to his native land, he would commission a golden icon from a well-known artist who lived in a monastery in Novosibirsk.
At three in the morning, the bar of the Hotel Martinez smells of cigarettes and sweat. By then, Jimmy (who always wears different colored shoes) has stopped playing the piano, and the waitress is exhausted, but the people who are still there refuse to leave. They want to stay in that lobby for at least another hour or even all night until something happens!
They're already four days into the Cannes Film Festival and still nothing has happened. Every guest at every table is interested in but one thing: meeting the people with Power. Pretty women are waiting for a producer to fall in love with them and give them a major role in their next movie. A few actors are talking among themselves, laughing and pretending that the whole business is a matter of complete indifference to them—but they always keep one eye on the door.
The Winner Stands Alone. Copyright (c) by Paulo Coelho . Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.Videos
