The Invisible Mile - by David Coventry (Paperback)

About the Book

The 1928 Ravat-Wonder team from New Zealand and Australia were the first English-speaking team to ride the Tour de France. From June through July they faced one of toughest in the race's history: 5,476 kilometres of unsealed roads on heavy, fixed-wheel bikes. They rode in darkness through mountains with no light and brakes like glass. They weren't expected to finish, but stadiums filled with Frenchmen eager to call their names. The Invisible Mile is a powerful re-imagining of the tour from inside the peloton, where the test of endurance, for one young New Zealander, becomes a psychological journey into the chaos of the War a decade earlier. Riding on the alternating highs of cocaine and opium, victory and defeat, the rider's mind is increasingly fixed on his encounter with his family's past. As he nears the battlefields of the north and his last, invisible mile, the trauma of exertion and disputed guilt cast strange shadows on his story, and onlookers congregate about him waiting for revelation.

Book Synopsis

This acclaimed novel based on true events in the 1928 Tour de France "is a powerful story of grim determination and one man's forlorn hope to conquer fear" (Publishers Weekly).

In 1928, the Ravat-Wonder cycling team became the first English-speaking peloton to compete in the Tour de France. The riders, hailing from New Zealand and Australia, were treated as exotics and isolated by language and cultural barriers. Underfinanced and undertrained, the team faced one of the toughest routes in the race's history: 5,476 kilometers over unsealed roads through a landscape heavy with the legacy of the Great War. 162 cyclists began the race that year; only 42 finished.
A deeply introspective book, The Invisible Mile is narrated by a fictional, unnamed rider on the Ravat-Wonder team. Speaking no French and knowing few of his fellow riders, his race becomes a confrontation with memories of the Great War and a quest to understand his own place in its history. He rides on the alternating highs of cocaine and opium, pain and pleasure, victory and defeat. As he nears his final mile along the northern battlefields, trauma, exertion, and his personal demons take over.

"Bruising, beautiful and ultimately transcendent, there's a perfect thought on sport, humanity or endurance on just about every page."--Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief

Review Quotes

Praise for The Invisible Mile

"Bruising, beautiful and ultimately transcendent, there's a perfect thought on sport, humanity or endurance on just about every page."
--Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief

"Coventry's tense, dark debut novel is a powerful story of grim determination and one man's forlorn hope to conquer fear and pain."
--Publisher's Weekly

"The sensuous language Coventry deploys to externalize the sensations of racing in packs, as well as the self-conscious intimacies of men 'roughhousing the love out of the late evening' or exposing their souls in the down times like jittery troops steeling themselves before battle."
--New York Times Book Review

"Written with poetic beauty. The Invisible Mile is an important and impressive debut."
--Sunday Star Times

"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."
--Ned Boulting, author of On the Road Bike

"A truly extraordinary first novel."
--NZ Listener

Praise for The Invisible Mile
"Bruising, beautiful and ultimately transcendent, there's a perfect thought on sport, humanity or endurance on just about every page."
--Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief
"Coventry's tense, dark debut novel is a powerful story of grim determination and one man's forlorn hope to conquer fear and pain."
--Publisher's Weekly

"Written with poetic beauty. The Invisible Mile is an important and impressive debut."
--Sunday Star Times
"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."
--Ned Boulting, author of On the Road Bike
"A truly extraordinary first novel."
--NZ Listener

Praise for The Invisible Mile
-Bruising, beautiful and ultimately transcendent, there's a perfect thought on sport, humanity or endurance on just about every page.-
--Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief
-Written with poetic beauty. The Invisible Mile is an important and impressive debut.-
--Sunday Star Times
-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.-
--Ned Boulting, author of On the Road Bike
-A truly extraordinary first novel.-
--NZ Listener

About the Author

David Coventry's top-ten bestselling debut novel, The Invisible Mile, was published in his native New Zealand by Victoria University Press (publishers of Eleanor Catton) and became a finalist for the prestigious Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.