Blood-Drenched Beard

Once his father has died, the narrator, a PE teacher whose name is never given, breaks with the rest of his family and settles alone in Garopaba, on the Santa Catarina coast. His grandfather, known as Gaudério, is said to have been killed there long ago, when it was a fishing hamlet, and the grandson wants the truth, though the old locals say little. A disorder that stops him remembering faces shapes every encounter as he befriends a café waitress and her small son, his swimming students and an extravagant Buddhist, slowly assembling his own story.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

424 pages in the original

Genres

Family, Nature (assigned by AI)

Set in

Brazil

First published

2012 by Companhia das Letras

Author's age

33 when first published

ISBN

9788535921878 (original)

9780241146163 (Hamish Hamilton, United Kingdom)

9781594206689 (Penguin Press, United States)