Diorama

Author: Carol Bensimon

Format: Hardcover

An engrossing, gritty and adrenalin-fueled coming of age novel, marked by displacement and never-closing family wounds.

Cecília Matzenbacher is a taxidermist working in Northern California. Her passion of restoring once-living things and constructing dioramas of enclosed immobilized worlds is all-encompassing. But when it comes to reconstructing her own history, Cecília’s knack for composition frays.

When news comes that her father’s heart is failing and she may need to return home to Brazil to see him before it’s too late, Cecília’s past won’t stay fixed like a specimen behind glass any longer. Her story emerges, it stalks her, hunts her, and becomes her natural predator.

In 1988, as Brazil’s dictatorship fell and democratic rule returned, a beloved local congressman in Porto Alegre was assassinated. The prime suspect: Cecília’s father. Now, she threads the past and present, and reveals the secrets, lies, and taboo affairs that ignited the media frenzy and investigation of the murder.

In sleek, arresting prose that has the suspense-filled edge of a true-crime thriller, Carol Bensimon’s newest novel cements her status as one of the most dynamic voices in contemporary Brazilian literature.

‘There’s much to admire in this layered work’ — Publishers Weekly

‘A rare quiet thriller, meticulously crafted’ — Fernando A. Flores, author of Brother Brontë

‘Diorama reads like a twisty crime thriller: elegant, incisive, and extremely propulsive’ — Harold Rogers, author of Tropicália

‘Carol Bensimon has written a captivating philosophical thriller’ — Gladys Marivat, Le Monde

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