{"product_id":"the-swallowed-manisbn-9780593188880","title":"The Swallowed Man","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e EDITORS' CHOICE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“A strange and tender parable . . . All of Edward Carey's work is profound and delightful.” \u003cb\u003e —\u003c\/b\u003eMax Porter, author of\u003ci\u003e Lanny\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe ingenious storyteller Edward Carey returns to reimagine a time-honored fable: the story of an impatient father, a rebellious son, and a watery path to forgiveness for the young man known as Pinocchio\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the small Tuscan town of Collodi, a lonely woodcarver longs for the companionship of a son. One day, “as if the wood commanded me,” Giuseppe—better known as Geppetto—carves for himself a pinewood boy, a marionette he hopes to take on tour worldwide. But when his handsome new creation comes magically to life, Geppetto screams . . . and the boy, Pinocchio, leaps from his arms and escapes into the night. Though he returns the next day, the wily boy torments his father, challenging his authority and making up stories—whereupon his nose, the very nose his father carved, grows before his eyes like an antler. When the boy disappears after one last fight, the father follows a rumor to the coast and out into the sea, where he is swallowed by a great fish—and consumed by guilt. He hunkers in the creature’s belly awaiting the day when he will reconcile with the son he drove away.   \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith all the charm, atmosphere, and emotional depth for which Edward Carey is known—and featuring his trademark fantastical illustrations—\u003ci\u003eThe Swallowed Man\u003c\/i\u003e is a parable of parenthood, loss, and letting go, from a creative mind on a par with Gregory Maguire, Neil Gaiman, and Tim Burton.\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThe Swallowed Man\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Inspired. . . . a riff on the entwined themes of fatherhood and creative spark.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Swallowed Man\u003c\/i\u003e stands out among Carey’s other works. . . . an existential fairy tale for adults told by an old artist considering the tragedy of life.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“When I say that this is a beautiful book, I mean that literally­—the language as well as the art. . . . A spectacular experience.” \u003cb\u003e—Bill Goldstein, NBC\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Richly descriptive and abundantly playful . . . [an] endearing meditation on creation and its power, conveying how much the act adds to our existence.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Austin Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Carey has a knack for beautifully connecting objects to characters, in addition to weaving artwork—literally and figuratively—into his writing. . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Swallowed Man\u003c\/i\u003e is a wrenching take on the indefatigable nature of time, the restless way in which parents seek the best for their children, often spurning themselves in quiet darkness, not knowing if they did right by their offspring.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePloughshares\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Illuminated by Carey’s exquisitely textured original illustrations, [\u003ci\u003eThe Swallowed Man\u003c\/i\u003e] is a slim novel about art, parenthood, and what it is like to see your creations walk in the world, defy you, and even, maybe, save you as well. And it could not be more timely. [It has] the feeling of a book that both exists outside of time and yet lands, unerringly, in the present. . . . And as deliberate as his brushstrokes are, his words are as well.” —\u003cb\u003eAlexander Chee, \u003ci\u003eLit Hub\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A surreal and intimate portrait of a father in crisis.” —\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePoets \u0026amp; Writers\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Following up on the triumph of his historical novel \u003ci\u003eLittle\u003c\/i\u003e, Carey proves once again how there is a magic in that archetypal familiarity of the perennial fairy tale.”\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e —The Millions\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Geppeto, carver of naughty Pinocchio, keeps a haunting journal of his years inside the whale. Bizarre [and] moving.”\u003cb\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Margaret Atwood\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“No Disney fairy tale, this is an illustrated, literary, poignantly erudite study in anguish, guilt, madness, soul-searching, and eventual redemption.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Art objects live in the belly of this marvelous novel, images swallowed by text, sustained by a sublime and loving imagination. Like all Edward Carey's work, \u003ci\u003eThe Swallowed Man\u003c\/i\u003e is profound and delightful. It is a strange and tender parable of two maddening obsessions; parenting and art-making.” \u003cb\u003e—Max Porter, author of \u003ci\u003eGrief Is the Thing with Feathers\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eLanny\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.” —\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePraise for Edward Carey:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A writer with] a dowsing rod capable of divining what hides within the human heart. Carey is without peer.” \u003cb\u003e—Kelly Link\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Edward Carey writes wonderfully weird books about wonderfully weird things.” \u003cb\u003e—Celeste Ng\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Nothing short of a genius.” \u003cb\u003e—Daily Mail (London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eEdward Carey\u003c\/b\u003e is a novelist, visual artist, and playwright. His previous novels include \u003ci\u003eLittle\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eAlva \u0026amp; Irva\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eObservatory Mansions\u003c\/i\u003e, and an acclaimed series for young adults, the Iremonger Trilogy. His writing for the stage includes an adaptation of Robert Coover’s \u003ci\u003ePinocchio in Venice\u003c\/i\u003e, a continuation of the Pinocchio story. Born in England, he now teaches at the University of Texas in Austin, where he lives with his wife, the author Elizabeth McCracken, and their family.\u003cp\u003e1.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I am writing this account, in another man’s book, by candlelight, inside the belly of a fish. I have been eaten. I have been eaten, yet I am living still.\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eI have tried to get out. I have made many attempts. But I must conclude that it is not possible. I am trapped within an enormous creature and am slowly being digested. I have found a strange place to exist, a cave between life and death. It is an unhappy miracle.\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eI am afraid of the dark. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe dark is coming for me.\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eI have candles; they are my small protection. And I have this purloined book, that I shall slowly fill.\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eBefore the last candle dies, I’ll tell my tale. I give you fair warning: I can boast you no battlefields; this is no murderer’s story; there is no great romance. But before all this, back on land, I did an extraordinary thing. An impossible thing. And for that thing—in order that the world may be put back in balance—I am now paying a severe cost.  I shall tell my terrible shame, my tale of the supernatural though so devastatingly real.\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003e Am I to account myself very fortunate, or entirely devoid of luck? I considered myself, before this last tumble, a very fortunate individual, blessed of more good luck, surely, than was my fair portion. Back on land, after all, I had made a miracle, I had fashioned an impossible thing.\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eBut this piece of good luck is overshadowed by a rather enormous piece of bad luck that I am not quite able to forget, for I live with the fact every day. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A monster fish has swallowed me—a shark or relative of that species, I am no expert. It is no small basking shark that has thus contained me, I say that straight, no catfish with grand opinions of himself. I have been taken by a colossus, perhaps the largest of its kind that ever was. Perhaps the last surviving \u003ci\u003emegalodon\u003c\/i\u003e, of prehistoric vintage. Deep in such a thing do I dwell. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I had heard of this monster-beast, this hunger-creature, ere I braved the waters. Did I head out in a large military vessel equipped with cannon and musket, with harpoon and barbed hook? No, I must own I did not. I set out into the watery world on a dinghy, a rather ancient craft. It floated, it was seaworthy, so long as the sea was in good humor. I went out because someone had told me—was it a cruel joke, I wonder now?—that my own son was on the water in distress, and I wanted him back. I wanted, to be clear, to save him. But I did not save him. Of that, I am most keenly aware. I bought a small boat. It seemed a solid boat to me, but I am ignorant of such matters, and the further out I rowed, the less certain I was. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Some miles out, the water began to move strangely. Waves, when before it had been calm. My little boat rocking, soon some water spilling in. An increasing storm upon me. My little boat trembling more and more, and then waves breaking and the sea opening—as if it were boiling—and then the great mouth itself was upon me. The hole, rushing forward. The living tunnel hurtling unto me. Such a size, no hope against such a thing, like the world had erupted. The sea creature, colossus, flesh-mountain. I saw it only fleetingly, for a handful of seconds. Like Moses it split the water, and suddenly before me was a great black depth. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I fell, for there was no alternative, toward it and within it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eInto the very mouth.\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eI saw its teeth. Arranged in rows two or three deep. A graveyard. \u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eOn I fell, out and away from everything I knew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eConfined, constricted. Stolen!\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eHow shall I ever find him now?\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eI shall never see him again.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I smashed down the dark tunnel, my body thrown and thumped, dashed and dragged, desperate for breath. Down and down, darker and damper, until at last the falling ceased. I had landed and now could breathe again. But what land was this, what peculiar geography? I was up to my knees in liquid. I puffed, I panted—I, somehow, \u003ci\u003elived\u003c\/i\u003e! Scraped here and there, disheveled certainly, bruised and bloody, but still, no matter the unlikeliness, still alive. And yet what living could this be?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Rickety and miserable, harrowed by the dank rocking darkness, at last I started feeling about. The floor was moist yet solid enough, but even as I fumbled I could find no end to it. Timidly I rose, fully expecting my head to strike a surface, but soon I was standing at full height and still I found no roof. I lifted my shaking hands above me with caution, fully prepared for them to strike something solid. But the strike did not come. I proceeded to extend my height as well as I could and yet I touched only more unoccupied space. Only after a moment did rumors of the high ceiling begin to reach me, in the form of liquid dripping from above. I have suffered this small rain ever since.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eHere, then, was space.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI set out east five paces, no limit; west ten paces, no end yet. The ground, I report, was not even. \u003cbr\u003eI tried to walk forward and stumbled upon objects, pieces of half-eaten sea life, yet still the place went on. \u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eI called out, and the altered sound of my voice was a terror to me.\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003e“Hallooo!” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe noise was unpleasant, and there came the response: \u003ci\u003eHallo! Hallo! Hallo!\u003c\/i\u003e All the time quieter, the decreasing ghosts of my original sound. \u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eI felt about further, in total darkness, no hint of anything but black and black and ever more of black, until I bumped into something solid. A wall, cast out at an angle, but not of flesh—it seemed to me, somehow, to be of \u003ci\u003ewood\u003c\/i\u003e. Planks of wood. Curving upward. Wood? Impossible! \u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eI followed this wall with shaking hands and, finding its end, pulled myself up onto it.  This took some doing, and I failed many times. But then—at the peak of its curve—a flat surface! Flat, here? Flat, true? Flat! \u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eIt could not be. And yet it was. \u003cbr\u003e            \u003cbr\u003e I crawled upon this flat and had not been long about it when suddenly there was an opening in the flat ground and I tumbled downward, into something else. I had fallen again. Not so very far this time; about the height, I surmised, of a full grown man. There was blood in my mouth. I felt about: more flat . . . and yet not only. I could not trust myself to believe it.\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eStairs!\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eMy hands discovered actual solid \u003ci\u003estairs\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eNo! Impossible! But there was no mistake. I had fallen down stairs. Did this peculiar creature have perhaps a spiral stairway within its intestines? Was there a smart rotunda to its heart? Twin outhouses of kidneys? Its oesophagus a redbrick chimney flue? How strange, that a great fish should master the concept of right angles. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On the floor—solid floor, now,  this was—I felt boxes, wooden crates spilled about. These were surely not a natural part of my enormous host, I sensed, but rather something consumable, like me. The lid of one I proceeded to break loose, then felt about its insides. Stacked in neat rows, I felt a particular column I was only too familiar with, made, I supposed—\u003ci\u003eO,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eirony!\u003c\/i\u003e—of whale fat. Candles! Spermaceti pillars, so many night-killers, so many suns. And dry, by my word. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eHallo, tallow! \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To light one and see again: how lovely that would be. I fumbled about, hoping to find a tinderbox to rescue me, but no such miracle was about. I was so thirsty to see again that I panicked myself utterly. Until in my weeping misery it at last occurred to me that I may have the solution with me all along.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eJoseph, Joseph,\u003c\/i\u003e I said to myself, \u003ci\u003ehave you ever been the smoker of a pipe?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eAye, I answered myself, I am part of that fraternity. If there were light, I should show you my right finger and thumb, be-yellowed by my habit. You would spy the evidence of a staining to the hairs of my upper lip. You would meet my teeth, also witnesses of this behavior.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e            \u003cbr\u003eSo then.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e            \u003cbr\u003e Ah! Left trouser cupboard? Empty but for the leg. Right side: something else there? \u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eCareful now, careful, withdraw with steadiness. Is it there, I ask you?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eOh! It is, it is. Beautiful lady, Lucy, my Lucifer. So then, to strike the box of her, open her eyes.\u003cbr\u003e            \u003cbr\u003e I sent up a flare to heaven.\u003cbr\u003e            \u003cbr\u003e I lit my vesta.\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eI had light.\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eLight, ho!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Riverhead Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304310493413,"sku":"NP9780593188880","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593188880.jpg?v=1730756933","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-swallowed-manisbn-9780593188880","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}