Böcker av Geoff Rips

Fiction. Winner of the 2006 AWP Award for the Novel. Nicholas Delbanco, Judge. In his debut novel, THE TRUTH, Geoff Rips creates a moral universe in a series of tales narrated by the palsied hunchback Chuy Pingarron who spends his days on the front porch of a San Antonio whorehouse and is proud to be dubbed "the standard of perversion" by those whose stories he tells. Through his twisted perspective we meet the Midwife who is also the house's madam, the philosopher Don Apolo who lives in an iron lung, and Angelita, famous for her hands. Chuy relates the sad story of the impenetrable Soledad, deemed by her mother to be a saint; of la Ramona, whose one eye looks into your soul while the other looks away; and of the enigmatic la Verdad, whose customers seek her out to learn their fortunes. At turns comic and tragic, Chuy's story meditates on the most ancient questions: how do you live a life and what does it mean?

The world is falling apart at every turn as New York PI Giacomo Berg and missing-persons expert Bonita "e;B.C."e; Boyd search desperately for old friend Peter Proust before he disappears from the face of the earth. Set in the months prior to the arrival of the last Millennium, Peter Proust is working intently to disappear into the landscape in Texas. Berg is joined by Texas-born friend Boyd, whose job is to document disappeared persons in Latin America and assist those political refugees who appear at her door.Their search leads deep into the vulnerable underbelly of America where they encounter a cult hidden in the East Texas woods run by a messianic rock star, a survivalist waiting for the bomb, and people dodging falling space debris. All are trying to protect themselves in a world gone haywire. Berg and Boyd are pulled into this quicksand when they are recruited to assist a suburban Houston community being poisoned by local chemical plants. The tortuous course of their quest is mirrored by the meandering course of the relationship between Berg and Boyd as they navigate the swamps, deserts, and mountains of the Southwest, working desperately to rescue Peter Proust before he vanishes completely.