"Andalucia is famous for its variety: high alpine mountains and snow-capped peaks, river plains and rolling olive groves, sun-baked coastlines and arid deserts. It is the perfect setting for Neil Rollinson's debut novel, which is its own kind of spectacular mosaic. Built from short, seemingly discrete chapters that take us between Spain in 2003 and the coalfields of Northumberland in the 70s and 80s, The Dead Don't Bleed coheres into an extraordinarily tense and tender portrait of two brothers trying to escape their father's gangland past."
"If you took Frank and his brother Gordon apart on the autopsy table, he writes, you'd find the same bones, the same blood. Almost everything interchangeable. The corkscrews of DNA, the cells, the posture, the downcast glance. But from a young age, change is afoot within Frank. He knows his father has high hopes for him in the family business of petty crime: Frank Bridge. King of Northumberland. But Frank wants to be a different kind of king."
Andalucia offers varied landscapes from alpine mountains and snow-capped peaks to sun-baked coastlines and arid deserts. The narrative alternates between Spain in 2003 and the coalfields of Northumberland in the 1970s and 1980s. The story centers on two brothers, Frank and Gordon, striving to escape their father's gangland influence. Frank increasingly resists a life expected of him in petty crime and seeks expansiveness through poetry and dreams. Frank becomes dangerously attracted to his brother's girlfriend, Carol, a physically strong woman who protects herself and commands respect. The tone blends tension and tenderness while depicting the enduring impact of a violent patriarchy.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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