Hermano wakes up at dawn for a trip to the Andes, to climb the Cerro Bonete, one of the planet's final mountains to be conquered - a planned feat of heroic bravado, or foolishness. But instead he finds himself driving back to his boyhood neighbourhood and to the clearing in the woods where he witnessed an act that has run like a scar through his life. Dragged by the undertow of memory, he replays his initiation into adulthood and recalls his volatile pack of boyhood friends. From one of Brazil's most dazzling writers, The Shape of Bones is an exhilarating story of mythic power.