The Horrific Sufferings Of The Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot
  • Published: 1 June 2006
  • ISBN: 9780099464396
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $22.99

The Horrific Sufferings Of The Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot

His Wonderful Love and his Terrible Hatred

Formats & editions
EBook
31 Oct 2011
Paperback
1 Jun 2006
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The story is charged, atmospheric, thought-provoking and bleakly skewed' - Daily Telegraph

On a stormy night in 1813, a doctor is called to the aid of two prostitutes in childbirth. To one is born a healthy girl, Henriette, to the other, what can only be described as a monster: a boy, Hercules, deaf-mute and hideously deformed, and with the power to read minds.

As he tells the story of Hercules' bizarre and colourful life, which leads him from the bordello of his birth to a travelling freak show and then a Jesuit monastery and an asylum, Vallgren paints a magical picture of nineteenth-century Europe. This picaresque fable is filled with curiosities but is, at its heart, an extraordinary and unforgettable love story.
  • Published: 1 June 2006
  • ISBN: 9780099464396
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $22.99
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About the author

Carl-Johan Vallgren

CARL-JOHAN VALLGREN was born in 1964. He is the author of eight novels, of which The Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-reading Monster Hercules Barefoot...was the first novel to be appear in English. His work has been translated into eleven languages. He lives in Stockholm.

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Praise for The Horrific Sufferings Of The Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot

The story has an obsessive drive

Christopher Priest, Guardian

A Perfume for a new generation. Vallgren conveys readers through [Hercule and Henriette's] wonderful love as well as their terrible hatred with equal relish and aplomb. Tremendous

Time Out

Challenging and shocking

Guardian

The new cult read

Vogue

Vallgren's Gothic parable, rich in folk-myth symbolism, highlights the interconnectivity of linguistics, psychology and religion while never compromising the blood-racing pace of a rollicking adventure story

Metro

A picaresque, grotesque and magical novel

Guardian
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