James Young

That Ambrósio Silva Costa e Oliveira, a sworn Madalenist, wrote a novel composed solely of epigraphs will scandalize no one even slightly familiar with Brazil’s literary history. Nor is it rare to come across people who know, despite not having read Second-Hand Oedipus (2010), that the revered book – perhaps the only example of its kind – opens with a Heraclitus fragment and closes with these celebrated words from Renan’s prayer: ‘Thou art the only true God, O Abyss!’ However, the fact that Silva Costa sought a writer of lesser calibre to write his second book was as shocking to me as it will be to the reader, when they learn that mine was the calibre chosen and that this book, despite bearing my name on the cover, is in fact the second novel by this singular author from the state of Rio de Janeiro.

My encounter with Silva Costa – a notable recluse – occurred in