This was a very intriguing and very literary work of magical realism. It’s a short book, but I took my time reading it. It’s a book that benefits from a chance to think on. Though the book isn’t going to be to everyone’s tastes, I’d think this could spark as good a book club discussion as anything I’ve ever read.
The premise is that the writer, a Brazilian immigrant to America, ran into the Devil at a party and ended up hooking up with him. From that point forward, she saw him frequently, though they only interacted in the briefest of ways, and in ways that shaped her writing. Reading the blurb, I thought this was going to be a collection of short stories. And it is, sort of. It’s got a bunch of short stories in it, interspersed with passages about the writer’s life and about her writing the stories. (How much of it is autobiographical is unclear, but given that the writer within the book and the author of the book are both Brazilian immigrants, I’m assuming at least somewhat.) It’s hard to tell, sometimes, what’s a story and what is part of the greater frame story. Things definitely get intentionally blurry at times.
This is definitely a 2016-2020 novel. The anti-immigrant ugliness that was so prominent in America during those years is always near the surface here; as a Latin American immigrant, the writer is justifiably living in a climate of fear and uncertainty. Things get even worse as Covid rolls in; the author did a great job of capturing the anxiety of the early months when things were really bad. The writer lives in Manhattan; I’m hoping some of the New Yorkers I know will read it and share their thoughts with what it was like to live through that first wave.
On the political side, of course the writer is dealing with living under our former Dear Leader. But she’s also dealing with the political situation in Brazil. Her parents ranting about Donald Trump and not seeing the many, many similarities between him and Jair Bolsonaro is a particular sore point for the writer.
The stories within the book frequently deal with the immigrant experience, with a particular focus on balancing life in the United States with family back home. There was one thing in particular I loved the conceit of. The writer attended one of those writing workshops where people read their story, and everyone offers critiques. We don’t get the story the writer wrote for the workshop; we get the critiques everyone sent her, with their conflicting interpretations and contradictory advice. It’s a delight to read, though I want the actual story rather badly. Or at least I want Ananda Lima to let me know if the two guys ever found the cat.
The writing is absolutely beautiful. Lima has a gift for expressing emotion through imagery, and for painting a scene in the reader’s head. Not going to be to everyone’s tastes, but strongly recommended.
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