BURY YOUR DEAD

By the International Booker Prize Shortlisted Author of On Earth As It Is BeneathEdgar Wilson has a gruesome job one he is entirely unsentimental about he cleans up roadkill in rural Brazil But one day vultures are circling in the woods and he can t not go see what they re gathering for What transpires is a quest a miserable day long journey for a couple of poor working men who only want to acknowledge that everybody and in this case every literal body has the right to be treated as more than just scrap or trash Dead animals defrocked priests corpses abandoned in the woods and a criminal outfit trafficking in body parts Bury Your Dead is an exhortation a road trip a story of friendship and a hymn to the small ways we can shape the world Ana Paula Maia s alchemy with the grimmest of ingredients makes this her more hopeful generous novel yet