Tropicália

A Novel

By: Harold Rogers

Narrated by: André Santana, Gisela Chípe, Cindy Kay, Jonathan Davis, Cynthia Farrell, Vanessa Moyen

Old secrets are brought to light when a family matriarch returns to Brazil after years away in this “original and highly immersive” (Good Morning America) debut that explores the heartbreak and hope of what it means to be from two homes, two peoples, and two worlds.

Daniel Cunha has a lot on his mind.

He got dumped by his pregnant girlfriend, his grandfather just dropped dead, and on the anniversary of the raid that doomed his drug-dealing aunt and uncle, his mother makes her unwanted return, years after she fled to marry another American fool like his father.

Misfortune, however, is a Cunha family affair, and no generation is spared. Not Daniel’s grandfather João—poor João—born to a prostitute and forced to raise his siblings while still a child himself. Not João’s wife, Marta, branded as a bruxa, reviled by her mother, and dragged from her Ilha paradise by her scheming daughter, Maria. And certainly not Maria, so envious of her younger sister’s beauty and benevolence that she took her vicious revenge and fled to the States, abandoning her children: Daniel and Lucia, both tainted now by their half-Americanness and their mother’s greedy absence.

There’s poison in the Cunha blood. They are a family cursed, condemned to the pain of deprivation, betrayal, violence, and, worst of all, love. But now Maria has returned to grieve her father and finally make peace with Daniel and Lucia, or so she says. As New Year’s Eve nears, the Cunha family hurtles toward an irrevocable breaking point: a fire, a knife, and a death on the sands of Copacabana Beach.

Amid the cacophony of Rio’s tumult—rampant poverty, political unrest, the ever-present threat of violence—a fierce chorus of voices rises above the din to ask whether we can ever truly repair the damage we do to those we love in this “fiery debut novel” (The Washington Post).

Good for Brazilians

The story is very teen. But it was entertaining because brought memories of places and situations of only someone who grew up in Rio can have.

Just okay

My biggest complaint is how the story goes back and forth with the different characters and it was sometimes confusing and I had to go back and listen to a prior chapter. All in all, it’s depressing and disturbing.

Worse book ever

The story is so unhappy I couldn’t recommend it to anyone. I may cancel a planned trip to Brazil based on conditions in book.