Dead Heat (eBook)

Description

In a nameless Hungarian town, teenagers on a competitive swim team occupy their after-training hours with hard drinking and fast cars, hash cigarettes and marathons ofGrand Theft Auto, the meaningless sex and late-night exploits of a world defined by self-gratification and all its attendant recklessness. Invisible to their parents and subject to the whims of an abusive coach, the crucible of competition pushes them again and again into dangerous choices. When a deadly accident leaves them second-guessing one another, theyre driven even deeper into violence.Brilliantly translated into breakneck English by Ildik Nomi Nagy,Dead Heatis a blistering debut and an unforgettable story about young men coming of age in an abandoned generation.Praise forDead HeatLets say it up front: readingDead Heat, the Hungarian writer Benedek Totths first novel, is a shock . . . [like] the cry of love and desperation flung out by a generation thats finished before it can begin, before it can even reach maturity.Yann Perreau,Les InrockuptiblesA brilliant novel, but brilliant like a black diamond and cursed so that you dont want to hold it, a tale that never lets you go, no matter how much repugnance you may feel.Encre NoireIntense, brutal and relentless. As on a mad merry-go-round, youre delighted not to be able to get off before its over. But watch out: the harsh form and subject matter will leave more modest readers shaken.TlStarDead Heatis about an empty world . . . its language full of slang, its elocution prizing sexuality, violence and luxury goods. Its hallucinatory moments call to mind classics of 20th-century American literature like Bret Easton Ellis, Raymond Carver or Hunter S. Thompson, or the cult movieTrainspottingand the violence of youth at its centre reminds us of GoldingsLord of the Flies.Magyar NarancsA savage world where teenagers roam like zombies high on drugs . . . a whirling sequence of fast-paced movie scenes, sharp dialogues and luxuriant visions.Szpirodalmi FigyeloDead Heatis a no-holds-barred portrait of adolescents adrift . . . The blue waters of the Danube have never looked this troubled.Paris MatchBenedek Totth darkens his pages with a boundless talent. He writes like a man screaming, moved by furious desperation. Totths dialogues show that he understands the power of humour, and he also knows that the world moves too fast and leaves those who dont know how to swim at the edge of the pool. A devastating, beautiful Noir novel.LExpress(Paris)