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ALL SHALL BE WELL
Meet Burt Hecker: a mead-drinking, tunic-wearing medieval re-enactor from upstate New York . He prefers oat gruel to French fries because potatoes were unavailable in Europe before 1200 AD; and, at war with the modern world, he enjoys hosting large-scale reenactments at the Victorian bed and breakfast he calls home.
But Burt has some serious problems. After an incident involving the New York State police and an illegally borrowed car, Burt is forced to join a local music therapy workshop to manage his anger. He gallantly accompanies the group to Germany for a festival celebrating the music of the visionary saint Hildegard von Bingen – but he has no plan to return home. His real quest is to get to Prague in order to find his estranged son Tristan, who, he believes, has lost his way in the bohemian city.
Moving between past and present, the tragic details of Burt’s life are gradually revealed: the recent death of his beloved wife; the circumstances that separate him from his children; his complicated relationship with his mother-in-law. And we begin to understand, with heart-wrenching clarity, Burt’s eccentric and poignant devotion to a time other than his own.
Wildly inventive and mesmerizing, Tod Wodicka’s debut is a modern-day Arthurian quest that introduces one of the most winning oddball characters to come along in years.
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'Heartbreaking, hilarious.'
The New Yorker
'This tender, oddball book...performs a deft balancing act as it hides love,
yearning and regret behind the mouthful of medieval incantation in its title...
Startlingly poignant.'
The New York Times
'Wonderfully imagined... Wodicka has crafted an eccentric tale full of humor and compassion.'
The Guardian
'An assured novel bursting with humor and weighted with sadness.'
Financial Times
'Wodicka’s wry and subtle prose is a pleasure throughout.'
The Observer
'An astonishing, beautiful book...It’s comic and compassionate, assured in tone and richly poetic...unfolding in brilliantly unexpected and entertaining ways.'
Peter Hobbs, author of The Short Day Dying
PUBLISHERS
UK – Jonathan Cape
US – Pantheon
Dutch – Nieuw Amsterdam
German – Klett
Romania – Leda Editserv Srl
Spain – Destino
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