The long night of white chickens
by Francisco Goldman
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Description
This acclaimed novel by the Pulitzer Prize-finalist is "at once a story about a boy growing up in two cultures, a love story, and a mystery" (The Boston Globe). Winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, The Long Night of White Chickens announced Francisco Goldman's arrival as a major literary talent. It is both a suspenseful mystery and a tale of two worlds that plumbs the darkest depths of the relationship between the United States and Guatemala. Goldman tells the story of Roger show more Graetz, raised in a Boston suburb by an aristocratic Guatemalan mother and Jewish father, and Flor de Mayo, the beautiful young Guatemalan orphan who lives with the family as a maid. Similar in age, Roger and Flor become close, and remain so even after she leaves to attend college at Wellesley. After graduation, however, Flor returns home to Guatemala City, where she heads a local orphanage that arranges international adoptions. When she's murdered, Roger is stunned and can't believe the rumors he hears about her life. Years later, he travels to Guatemala to uncover the circumstances around Flor's mysterious death in this "wonderful book" that is as "complex as history, funny as love, painful as death" (The Washington Post Book World). "A richly layered, genre-busting novel that shuttles between suburban Boston and Guatemala City and devours everything in its path." --Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I love Francisco Goldman but this was a real mess of a novel, and twice as long as it needed to be. Still enjoyed it, though.
A friend who has lived in Guatemala recommended this book. I struggled to get thru it. It’s overly verbose. Good description of the socio-political issues of the early 1980 s. The ending was disappointing.
This novel has an interesting, if slow-moving, plot. The nonlinear telling and magical realism combine with some vivid imagery and description to counteract the slow pace of the plot.
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Pen/Faulkner Winners and Finalists
178 works; 9 members
Author Information
16+ Works 1,403 Members
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The long night of white chickens
- Original title
- The long night of white chickens
- Original publication date
- 1998
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 284
- Popularity
- 113,044
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.56)
- Languages
- English, Italian, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 12
- ASINs
- 4
