The Piano Cemetery

by José Luis Peixoto

Translated from the original Portuguese by Daniel Hahn

Set in the working-class district of Benfica in Lisbon, The Piano Cemetery tells the story of a family, and especially of the hopes and fears of the fathers who pass the baton of the generations on to their sons.
The Lazaro family are cabinet-makers who would rather be piano-makers. They have a carpentry shop in the Benfica district of Lisbon and there at the back is the ‘piano cemetery’ piled high with broken-down pianos that provide the spare parts needed for repairing pianos all over the city. It is a mysterious and magical place, a place of solace, a dreaming place and, above all, a trysting place for lovers.
The Piano Cemetery is a wonderfully accomplished novel in which the true story of the Portuguese marathon-runner, Francisco Lazaro, is woven into a rich narrative of love, betrayal, domestic happiness and dashed hopes. Narrated in part by the father of Francisco Lazaro on the day his grandson is born and the day he himself dies and in part by his son as he runs the Stockholm marathon of 1908, remembering his family and his loves as he struggles against the heat and strives to outrun death itself. It is a beautifully constructed tale, that is by turns, violent and tender, funny and moving, with flashes of true insight, startling imagery and an instinctive understanding of families and their ways.
The Piano Cemetery establishes Jose Luis Peixoto not only as the leading Portuguese novelist of his generation, but as a major figure on the international literary scene.

(From Publisher).

José Luis Peixoto was born in 1974 in the small Portuguese village of Alentejo. He teaches languages and contemporary literature and is also a journalist and literary critic. He is the author of seven works of fiction and poetry. Blank Gaze, published by Bloomsbury in November 2007 and in paperback in November 2008, is his first novel, and has been published to critical acclaim around the world for its fresh, unique and utterly moving style of storytelling.

The Piano Cemetery is a one of a kind novel. The book at heart deals with the human core issues such as birth, love, marriage, death, precisely in the chaotic way they present themselves to each and every one of us. However, Peixoto's complex and fragmented narrative is unique with a very particular cadence, unveiling itself as a surprising revelation, which makes this beautifully accomplished novel a wonderful literary challenge to be fully enjoyed.

The poetic, brilliantly written story of a famous at that time Portuguese long-distance runner, who was determined to win the Olympic Marathon and dies at its final.

A novel with an interesting narrative technique in which the story is revealed by two narrators, in a different time. It is a true story of a Portuguese marathon-runner, from a cabinet-makers family, a beautifully constructed tale, that is by turns, violent and tender, funny and moving, in which death does not indicate the end but has the meaning of renovation, as a link among generations and continuity of father and son, equal in name and in destiny.