Título: On Night's Shore: A Novel
Autor: Randall Silvis
Sinopse: It is the summer of 1840--for some in New York City a season of prosperity; for others, another season of desperation. This is the milieu of On Night's Shore, an amazing literary thriller from an author hailed by the New York Times Book Review as "a masterful storyteller." Randall Silvis's On Night's Shore opens with one of the most spellbinding scenes in contemporary writing. A girl tosses her baby from a warehouse window, then follows the infant into the Hudson River far below. The only witness to this desperate act is a ten-year-old street arab named Augie Dubbins, a boy who survives by the motto, "In calamity, opportunity." Augie does what he can to make a few pennies from the girl's tragedy. In doing so he encounters another of the desperate ones, a struggling young journalist named Edgar Allan Poe, a poet and critic and newspaper hack whose penchant for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time has not only stymied his advancement as a writer but has earned him more than a few enemies. Poe, too, hopes to use the girl's misfortune to fatten his threadbare purse. His efforts to do so lead to the discovery of the body of yet another young woman, and the ensuing investigation of her murder soon entraps Poe in a mire of murder, greed, lust and power that stretches from the Five Points slums to the gleaming heights of Fifth Avenue. But On Night's Shore is much more than just a page-turner. Here we see deep into the troubled psyche of Edgar Allan Poe, the father of all detective stories. We see the darkness that drove him, the demons that plagued him. We also see the tenderness with which he treated his young wife, soon to die herself, and his devoted, stalwart mother-in-law, and the avuncular kindness he lavished on Augie Dubbins, who in ten short years has witnessed more brutality and perversity than even Poe could imagine. And we see all of these characters entwined in the tentacles of a power struggle to control the fate of New York City, the sleazy underbelly of a political and business elite that speaks as much to today's society as it did to Poe's. Seldom does an historical thriller so authentically recreate a time and place as does On Night's Shore. Not since E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime have readers been treated to such a rich cast of qlcharacters, both real and imagined, or to a story so suspenseful and compelling-all of it rendered in some of the most luminous prose being written today. In this, his eighth book of fiction, Randall Silvis brilliantly bridges the gap between serious and popular literature. On Night's Shore is a stunning and haunting achievement.
Contexto da obra
Quando a classificação é mais ampla, o contexto do livro costuma depender ainda mais de autoria, tema e edição. “On Night’s Shore: A Novel”, de Randall Silvis, publicado pela editora Minotaur Books, em 2002 e com 368 páginas, integra a categoria Livros Variados. Por isso, autoria, edição e tema acabam tendo ainda mais peso na forma de apresentar o livro.
Editora: Minotaur Books
Páginas: 368
Ano: 2002
Edição: First Edition
Linguagem: pt_BR
ISBN: 9780312982102
ISBN13: 9780312982102
Sobre a editora
Os livros da editora Minotaur Books costumam mergulhar o leitor em mistérios que vão do urbano ao remoto, com personagens que enfrentam dilemas morais e segredos profundos. As tramas frequentemente exploram ambientes específicos, como cidades grandes, pequenas comunidades isoladas ou paisagens naturais rigorosas, criando um clima que varia do tenso ao atmosférico. Há uma atenção constante ao desenvolvimento psicológico dos protagonistas, sejam detetives profissionais, amadores ou pessoas comuns envolvidas em situações extraordinárias. O catálogo apresenta um equilíbrio entre narrativas mais tradicionais, com investigações metódicas, e histórias que misturam elementos históricos, suspense e até fantasia urbana, oferecendo ritmos que vão do investigativo ao mais acelerado.
