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Zusatztext I thought it was absorbing! and on many levels. It's a book about violence! youth! mythology! history! guilt and love - all set to the agonising rhythm of an inhuman bike race. Some achievement! Fictionalised accounts of sporting events don't always work! but this has the same feeling of total immersion as I remember feeling when I read David Peace's The Damned United Informationen zum Autor David Coventry received his MA in 2010 from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University. The Invisible Mile was published in New Zealand by Fergus Barrowman at Victoria University Press (the NZ publisher of Eleanor Catton) on June 11th 2016 to reviews calling the book "brilliant", "a tour de force", an "important and impressive debut" and "a dream to read". The Invisible Mile debuted at #2 on the NZ bestseller list and remained in the Top Ten for three straight months afterwards. Klappentext In 1928, five cyclists from Australia and New Zealand made history by forming the first English-speaking team to ride in the Tour de France. Under-resourced and outnumbered by the well-trained European teams, the group set off on a 5,476 kilometre journey that saw them ride out beyond their limits, through gruelling mountain paths in the night and rain, accidents and horrifying injuries. No one is certain they will make it to the finish line - least of all the narrator, a New Zealander racing on a dangerous mix of drink, drugs and pure desire. As he cycles towards the memory of his family's past in a northern France still scarred by the First World War, his self-imposed test of endurance takes him ever closer to his own final, invisible mile. A visceral, psychological novel, The Invisible Mile is an extraordinary re-imagining of the team that changed the landscape of cycling for ever. WINNER OF THE HUBERT CHURCH BEST FIRST BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION Vorwort Based on a true story, The Invisible Mile tells the story of the first English-speaking team to ride in the Tour de France. Zusammenfassung Based on a true story The Invisible Mile tells the poignant story of five Australian and New Zealand cyclists who in 1928 formed the first English-speaking team to ride in the Tour de France. They were gallant, under-resourced and badly outnumbered but taken deep to the heart by the French nation. The novel describes in a wonderful poetic and visceral voice what it was like to ride in this race (the chaos, danger and rivalries), the extraordinary lengths to which the riders pushed themselves, suffering horrific injuries, riding through the night in pitch dark, and the ways they staved off the pain, through camaraderie, through sexual conquest, through drink, and through drugs (cocaine for energy, opium for pain). Added to the team is the fictional narrator who is cycling towards his demons in a northern France still scarred by the First World War. His brother was a fighter pilot damaged by his experiences in France, his sister has died, and this self-imposed test of endurance is slowly and painfully bringing him to his final, invisible mile where memory eventually comes to collide with the past ...
