Status
Available
Publication
New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2016.
Description
When Brazilian novelist Beatriz Yagoda suddenly disappears, her American translator Emma travels to Brazil to solve the mystery while fending off rapacious loan sharks and the washed-up editor who made Yagoda famous.
Media reviews
The protagonist, Emma Neufeld, is a Portuguese-to-English translator devoted to the work of a cult-classic Brazilian writer. Novey herself translates from Portuguese to English, most recently the work of Clarice Lispector, the cult-classic Brazilian writer.
But Novey has wholly eluded the hazards
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of writing about writers. Instead, this lush and tightly woven novel manages to be a meditation on all forms of translation while still charging forward with the momentum of a bullet. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member icolford
In the opening scene of Idra Novey’s debut novel, the brilliant but eccentric Brazilian novelist Beatriz Yagoda is seen climbing a tree, carrying a packed suitcase and smoking a cigar. After this she vanishes completely. In Brazil, the disappearance of the country’s pre-eminent writer is
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newsworthy. The incident is reported internationally as well, and comes to the attention of Yagoda’s American translator, Emma Neufeld, who promptly leaves a sterile life and controlling boyfriend behind in Pittsburgh and heads to Brazil. In Rio, Emma forms an uneasy alliance with Beatriz’s grown children—protective and suspicious Rachel and carefree Marcus—in the search for their mother, but is quickly sidetracked by Marcus’ youthful charms and the two become embroiled in a passionate affair. In the meantime, a new Yagoda manuscript has been uncovered and Emma learns a few facts about her elusive author, the chief one being that Beatriz is addicted to online poker and has run up a massive debt with a ruthless loan shark, hence her desire to disappear. The action proceeds, via numerous brief chapters, at breakneck speed, with Emma using her intimate knowledge of Beatriz’s published works to spot clues to her possible whereabouts. Beatriz’s effete former publisher becomes involved, eventually publishing the new manuscript. It all seems like harmless fun until the loan shark decides the only way he’s going to recover his investment is to leverage a portion of the proceeds from the new book, which he does using threats and violence. Novey’s spirited narrative is difficult to pin down, one moment reading like a zany spoof of Amado or Garcia Marquez and the next evoking a grisly noir thriller. The key concept seems to be translation. Beatriz, elusive to the end, only exists in the minds of the characters we meet, each of whom is pursuing a private version of her (mother, iconic author, colleague, debtor). Make no mistake, Ways to Disappear provides a pleasant and inoffensive diversion for a couple of hours: the writing flows with unstoppable momentum and is often brilliantly evocative of a joyful and sensual Brazilian street culture. But the novel’s bubbly surface makes it very difficult to take the characters and their struggles seriously. Novey fills page after page with frantic action, but at no point does she give us a reason to cheer her characters on. There is an attempt at poignancy at the end, but by then the reader will have discovered the book lacks the emotional depth that would make us care. Show Less
LibraryThing member ozzer
This clever novel deals with issues related to the pitfalls of translating fiction—the translator must maintain the art that the author puts on paper while creating something new that is not exactly literal. The definitions behind the author’s words need to be considered while refraining from
All of this transpires with the involvement of several interesting characters, who also may have misconstrued Beatriz. These include her two children, the unconvinced Raquel and the dashing Marcus; her dull Pittsburgh boyfriend, who insists that Emma’s real life is not in Rio; and Beatriz’ failed editor, Roberto Rocha who would like nothing better than to get his hands on another successful new cult novel. Each of these characters views the missing Beatriz through a different prism: an idol, a mother, a best-selling novelist or a deadbeat. Novey seems to suggest that, in the end, defining Beatriz can be quite problematic.
At first blush, the story appears to be a farce, but quickly morphs into a darker tale. Notwithstanding this, Novey maintains playfulness and a brisk pace throughout, facilitated by short punchy chapters interspersed with relevant emails, poems, definitions and news bulletins. Although none of the characters is developed to the extent one might expect in a longer novel, Novey manages to bestow each with Runyonesque qualities while maintaining a high degree of suspense.
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extensive editing that may alter the meaning behind those words. The danger comes in losing the truth that the author intended. In her story, Novey—herself a translator—uses the mysterious disappearance of an author and the search for her by her translator to explore these problems of identity and definition. Emma Neufeld believes that she is eminently qualified to conduct the search for the famous Brazilian writer, Beatriz Yagoda, because she has been translating her work for years and thus knows her intimately. She quickly learns that she may have been mistaken because Beatriz had a secret life as a compulsive online gambler with extensive debts to a murderous loan shark, Flamenguinho. Moreover, from an unfinished manuscript, Emma begins to doubt the extent to which her translations may have altered and embellished Yagoda’s writings making them into something they may not have been. All of this transpires with the involvement of several interesting characters, who also may have misconstrued Beatriz. These include her two children, the unconvinced Raquel and the dashing Marcus; her dull Pittsburgh boyfriend, who insists that Emma’s real life is not in Rio; and Beatriz’ failed editor, Roberto Rocha who would like nothing better than to get his hands on another successful new cult novel. Each of these characters views the missing Beatriz through a different prism: an idol, a mother, a best-selling novelist or a deadbeat. Novey seems to suggest that, in the end, defining Beatriz can be quite problematic.
At first blush, the story appears to be a farce, but quickly morphs into a darker tale. Notwithstanding this, Novey maintains playfulness and a brisk pace throughout, facilitated by short punchy chapters interspersed with relevant emails, poems, definitions and news bulletins. Although none of the characters is developed to the extent one might expect in a longer novel, Novey manages to bestow each with Runyonesque qualities while maintaining a high degree of suspense.
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LibraryThing member seeword
Uh, why did this get so many raves? A Brazilian novelist goes missing, her American translator goes to Brazil to search for her, stuff happens. I thought of the movie Romancing the Stone though I doubt that's what the author intended. Library book.
LibraryThing member nancyjean19
3.5 stars
I enjoyed Novey's writing style and her invocation of a steamy few days in Brazil, but the characters were too vaguely sketched out. I never quite bought or believed any of the relationships between the characters or their motivations. The imagery cleverly connects with the magical realism
I enjoyed Novey's writing style and her invocation of a steamy few days in Brazil, but the characters were too vaguely sketched out. I never quite bought or believed any of the relationships between the characters or their motivations. The imagery cleverly connects with the magical realism
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of South American literature, but those images were better realized than the book's characters or plot. Show Less
LibraryThing member steve02476
Short, quirky, funny, easy to read. I probably missed some point she was trying to make but I had fun reading it.
Awards
LA Times Book Prize (Finalist — 2016)
Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature (Winner — 2017)
Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize (Longlist — Fiction — 2016)
NPR: Books We Love (2016)
Language
Physical description
258 p.; 22 cm
ISBN
9780316298490
Local notes
fiction