num_pages: 288
description: After his undertaker fathers death laconic Greek mythology reading Pavlov is approached by a member of the mysterious Hellfire Society an antireligious sect that among many rebellious and often salacious activities arranges secret burial for outcasts who have been denied last rites because of their religion or sexuality. Pavlov agrees to take up his fathers work for the society and over the course of the novel acts as survivor- chronicler of his torn and fading community bearing witness to both its enduring rituals and its inevitable decline.In Beirut Hellfire Society award- winning author Rawi Hage praised for his fierce poetic originality (Boston Globe) and uncompromising vision (Colm Tibn) asks: What after all can be preserved in the face of certain change and imminent death? The answer is at once propulsive elegiac outrageous profane and transcendent and a profoundly moving meditation on what it means to live through war.
language: English
title: Beirut Hellfire Society
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company