{"product_id":"the-natural-order-of-things-9780802138132","title":"The Natural Order of Things","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom literary master Antóoacute;nio Lobo Antunes, comes a richly textured and multi-vocal tale of two families and the secrets that bind them.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Natural Order of Things\u003c\/i\u003e, a diabetic teenage girl in a Lisbon apartment complex is kept awake by the whispered childhood memories of the middle-aged civil servant lover she despises. Her father, once a miner in South Africa, is now reduced to dreams of \"flying underground.\" An officer in the pre-revolutionary army is tortured in prison on charges of conspiracy, plagued by memories of his illegitimate sister, locked away to live as a ghost in the attic like Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre. A secret policeman, who has abandoned his sanity to teach hypnotism by correspondence course, unwittingly holds the key to their secret histories.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe voices in \u003ci\u003eThe Natural Order of Things\u003c\/i\u003e create a portrait of a disintegrating Portugal and a personal political history that attains the brilliance of Elias Canetti and Nikolai Gogol.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAntónio Lobo Antunes\u003c\/b\u003e, who was called \"one of Portugal's pre-eminent writers\" by the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, was born in Lisbon in 1942. The son of a physician, he too became a doctor and then spent four years in the Portuguese army during the Angolan war. His fictional \"memoir\" of that war, \u003ci\u003eSouth of Nowhere\u003c\/i\u003e, was internationally praised and followed by other widely translated and much-honored novels, including \u003ci\u003eAct of the Damned\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eFado Alexandrino\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eExplanation of the Birds\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Natural Order of Things\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Grove Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52179034734866,"sku":"9780802138132","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_2f32dba6-99f2-4bf9-a08e-97f8959629b4.jpg?v=1775633963","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-natural-order-of-things-9780802138132","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}