"Saga of Brutes pulls together three fantastic stories "Between Dog Fights and Pig Slaughter," "The Dirty Work of Others," and "Bone Char," published for the first time as a single volume. Ana Paula Maia's narrative follows the invisible workingmen who carry society's burdens like Atlas. They exist in badness and fraternity, in high heat and intense speed. In the end, these heroes of vile circumstance are the soot-covered supermen who mine the center of the Earth, put out deadly fires, break endless asphalt, collect others' trash, and cremate bodies. But they, too, amount to nothing but carbo animalis--notwithstanding the impure relation of coal to diamonds. Without romanticizing her protagonists, Ana Paula Maia's fictional stories transmit some of the tender qualities of Brazil's brutish men and animals, building, like so many sand castles, a sustainable society on their sweat."--