The Wisdom of Perversity, Rafael Yglesias
The Wisdom of Perversity, Rafael Yglesias
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The Wisdom of Perversity

Author: Rafael Yglesias

Narrator: Paul Boehmer

Unabridged: 14 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/24/2015

Categories: Fiction


Synopsis

“The sly courage, the deft intelligence and the fierceness of vision that we, his fans, have come to expect from a Rafael Yglesias novel all blaze brightly forth--and cast very dark shadows--in THE WISDOM OF PERVERSITY.” --Michael Chabon, author of Telegraph Avenue

Brian and Jeff were best friends when they were young, leading lives of promise in New York City of the late 1960s, until something happened that brought an end to both their childhood and their friendship. Forty years later, when their secret surfaces in a terrible new context, they are forced to reunite by Jeff's cousin Julie who was also a victim of their childhood trauma. Together they must decide whether to tell all—unbalancing their lives and threatening their future—or continue to hide the truth and allow others to be victimized.

Rafael Yglesias, critically acclaimed, bestselling novelist and screenwriter, has crafted a novel that tells the stories of these three childhood friends who join together as adults to acknowledge the ways in which their lives were altered by the actions of a predator who sexually abused them, and who now, many years later, has been exposed by more recent victims, but who, thanks to his wealth and influence, is on the verge of escaping punishment.

The Wisdom of Perversity unmasks the headlines, giving voice to what is unsaid and life to what is hidden. Yglesias has created a startling, engrossing, unsettling, and moving story of surviving an insidious evil and a triumphant struggle to heal its wounds.

About Rafael Yglesias

Rafael Yglesias is an American novelist and screenwriter. He dropped out of high school upon publication of his first novel in 1972 at age seventeen. He was married to Margaret from 1977 until her death in 2004. He is the author of nine novels, including Dr. Neruda’s Cure for Evil and Fearless, which he adapted for the screen. He has two grown sons and lives in New York’s Greenwich Village.


Reviews

In The Wisdom of Perversity, Rafael Yglesias tells the story of three childhood friends, reluctantly reunited as adults when the man who sexually abused them more than three decades earlier is finally exposed as a predator, yet seems likely to get away with it. What Yglesias does well in The Wisdom......more

This is a bold book about child molestation that doesn’t sugar coat anything. Its stark truth can be hard to read. There are some terribly disturbing scenes. At first I thought the book was too explicit and that such detailed scenes were voyeuristic, but in reading online articles by the author, I u......more

Goodreads review by Chris

I worked in the Child Welfare field for many years. In my opinion, the strength of this book is that it accurately describes the immediate and long term effects of child sexual abuse allowing the reader to better understand the consequences of this childhood trauma. That being said, this is a challe......more

Goodreads review by Gerhard

I had no intention to read yet another book about the lifelong trauma associated with child abuse so soon after finishing A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. However, I had no idea the two were so similar. Interestingly, while both books come to the same conclusions about the intimacy issues and sexua......more