From Fernanda Torres, the celebrated Brazilian actress and bestselling author of The End, comes a riotous tragicomedy of a famed actor’s path from national sex symbol to cult icon to raving madman after a disastrous performance as King Lear.
Mario Cardoso’s meteoric rise to fame begins in the early sixties, when the promise of sex and revolution permeates the Rio air. But as he conquers the stage, arthouse cinema, and primetime TV, the fever and the decadence of stardom take their toll, and middle-aged Mario finds himself with an ebbing reputation, hairline, and bank account. He needs a royal comeback.
Enter King Lear. Mario’s turn as Shakespeare’s mad monarch goes well until he’s overtaken by a fit of laughter that gets more demented with each performance. Forced to cancel the show, he’s confronted with his mother’s unstaged madness—she’s now convinced that Mario is in fact her long-departed husband. Broke and desperate, Mario signs on for an evangelical network production: Sodoma. Yet, as low as he’s fallen, Mario’s final set is one he never imagined.
With the wicked humor and fleet-footed pace that made her novel The End a runaway bestseller in Brazil, Fernanda Torres’s Glory and its Litany of Horrors is a razor-sharp take on the uneasy marriage of Art and the marketplace, and on the profession of acting in all its horror and glory.
About the Author
Fernanda Torres was born in 1965 in Rio de Janeiro. The daughter of actors, she was raised backstage. Fernanda has built a solid career as an actress and dedicated herself equally to film, theater, and TV since she was 13 years old, and has received many awards, including Best Actress at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival. Over the last twenty years, she has written and collaborated on film scripts and adaptations for theater. She began to write regularly for newspapers and magazines in 2007 and is now a columnist for the newspaper Folha de São Paulo and the magazine Veja-Rio and contributes to the magazine Piauí. Her debut novel, The End, has sold more than 200,000 copies in Brazil.
Industry Reviews
"Brazilian actress Torres follows the frenetic collapse of an actor's career and his masculine bluster with piercing humor in her latest (after The End).... Torres's zippy momentum still leaves space for an emotional coda, and she has an impressive knack for showing Mario's vulnerability. This resonant story of an actor's accelerating decline will charm readers who enjoy madcap farce."
-Publishers Weekly, Pick of the Week * Publishers Weekly, Pick of the Week *
"This clever novel probes the conflict between business and artistry by chronicling the troubles of Mario Cardoso, a famous Brazilian actor past his prime.... Throughout, Cardoso's voice remains a blend of cynicism and delusion, with the occasional insight: 'What I lacked was the dignity to wear a crown, none of us have it.'"
-The New Yorker * The New Yorker *
"Brazilian actor Fernanda Torres writes about what she knows, while writer, editor and translator Eric M. B. Becker provides English-language audiences ready access to Torres's affecting performance on the page. Having alchemized theater into her standout debut, The End, Torres returns with another tragicomedy about the cost of 'this bind they call fame'-the irresistible lure, the blinding reception, the fickle adoration and the unrelenting need for reinventions."
-Terry Hong, Shelf Awareness -- Terry Hong * Shelf Awareness *
"Torres's experience as an actress takes center stage in her prose as sentences and action flow seamlessly, carrying the reader along on the edge of their seat.... Eric M. B. Becker's translation wonderfully represents the Brazilian text, engaging with Brazilian culture, discourse, and history in English.... Exceptional."
-Clayton McKee, Asymptote -- Clayton McKee * Asymptote *
"Before she became a bestselling author, Fernanda Torres was a celebrated actress in Brazil. In this, her second novel, she centers an actor who falls from grace after a disastrous performance as King Lear. This is a witty, satirical look at acting as art and its corruption by capitalism."
-Karla Strand, Ms. Magazine * Ms. Magazine *
