Luiza Sauma

Brazilian-born doctor Andr� Cabral is living in London when one day he receives a letter from his home country, which he left nearly thirty years ago. A letter he keeps in his pocket for weeks, but tells no one about. The letter prompts Andr� to remember the days of his youth - torrid afternoons on Ipanema beach with his listless teenage friends, parties in elegant Rio apartments, his after-school job at his father's plastic surgery practice - and, above all, his secret infatuation with the daughter of his family's maid, the intoxicating Luana. Unable to resist the pull of the letter, Andr� embarks on a journey back to Brazil to rediscover his past.

Flesh and Bone and Water

From an exciting new voice in literary fiction, a seductive, dazzling, atmospheric story of family, class, and deception set against the mesmerizing backdrops of Rio de Janeiro, the Amazon River, and London. André is a listless Brazilian teenager and the son of a successful plastic surgeon who lives a life of wealth and privilege, shuttling between the hot sands of Ipanema beach and his family’s luxurious penthouse apartment. In 1985, when he is just sixteen, André’s mother is killed in a car accident. Clouded with grief, André, his younger brother Thiago, and his father travel with their domestic help to Belem, a jungle city on the mouth of the Amazon, where the intense heat of the rainforest only serves to heighten their volatile emotions. After they arrive back in Rio, André’s father loses himself in his work, while André spends his evenings in the family apartment with Luana, the beautiful daughter of the family’s maid. Three decades later, and now a successful surgeon himself, André is a middle-aged father, living in London, and recently separated from his British wife. He drinks too much wine and is plagued by recurring dreams. One day he receives an unexpected letter from Luana, which begins to reveal the other side of their story, a story André has long repressed. In deeply affecting prose, debut novelist Luiza Sauma transports readers to a dramatic place where natural wonder and human desire collide. Cutting across race and class, time and place, from London to Rio to the dense humidity of the Amazon, Flesh and Bone and Water straddles two worlds with haunting meditations on race, sex, and power in a deftly plotted coming-of-age story about the nature of identity, the vicissitudes of memory, and how both can bend to protect us from the truth.

A Novel

Emir Andrés Ibañez

RESEÑA EN ESPAÑOL MÁS ABAJO


3.5
This book accompanied me for a day and a half, and I must admit that it was one of those companies that you know you're going to miss.

This is André's story, a doctor who is currently living in London, has two daughters and is separating from his wife. André begins to receive letters from Luana, the daughter of the maid with whom he was raised and who had not had contact since he left Rio de Janeiro after finishing high school. These letters provoke a surge of memories that begin when his mother dies in a car accident, until his departure to London, with all the secrets and anecdotes of events that took place in that period of time.

It is very well set, I think I felt this way because I am Argentine and the culture and the Brazilian landscape are very familiar to me. The structure was also very successful, is one of those novels with few dialogues, like the ones I like, where all the weight of the story lies in the prose, in this case in the memories and details about André's life, about the relationship with his father and his brother, the mourning after the death of his mother, the important role that Luana and her mother had in their lives and at home. Always with a melancholic tone and at the same time fresh, as if you were within the memories of someone who trusted you to participate in it.

Little by little, this book portraits many social issues. I think one of the main aspects was the separation of the upper and the lower class, which were the rules, functions and customs of each of the parties. But it also covers other deeper issues such as the passage of time, mistakes, mourning, idealization of Europe by Latin Americans, social prejudice, clandestine in the medical field, family secrets.

It's a story full of feelings and emotional moments. The atmosphere was what I liked most of the book because I felt I was there, on the beaches of Ipanema, with the scorching sun on top of my head, with all that culture around me, the truth is that I found it fascinating.

Yes, there were a couple of things that I didn't like: I would have liked the end to be more developed, to know a little more about the life of other characters, with whom one ends up fondling and, suddenly, they are relegated to the background.

To summarize, I can say that I liked this book very much. André and Luana are going to stay with me for a long time, and I'm sure I'll read this author's next books.


Netgalley sent me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

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Este libro me acompañó durante un día y medio, y debo admitir que fue una de esas compañías que sabés que vas a extrañar.
Nos cuenta la historia de André, un médico que, en la actualidad está viviendo en Londres, tiene dos hijas y está separándose de su esposa. André comienza a recibir cartas de Luana, la hija de la empleada con la que se crió y que no había vuelto a tener contacto cuando abandonó Rio de Janeiro después de terminar el secundario. Estas cartas provocan una oleada recuerdos que comienzan cuando su madre fallece en un accidente, hasta su partida a Londres, con todos los secretos y anécdotas de sucesos que tuvieran lugar en ese período de tiempo.

Está muy bien ambientado, creo que lo sentí así porque soy argentino y la cultura y el paisaje brasileño me resultan muy familiares. La estructura también estuvo muy bien lograda, es una de esas novelas con pocos diálogos como las que me gustan, donde todo el peso de la historia recae en la prosa, en este caso en los recuerdos y los detalles que poco a poco nos va contando André sobre su vida, sobre la relación con su padre y con su hermano, el duelo tras el fallecimiento de su madre, el papel tan importante que Luana y su madre tenían en sus vidas como en sus casas. Siempre con un tono melancólico y a la vez fresco, como si estuvieras dentro de los recuerdos de alguien que confió en vos para que seas partícipe de ello.

Poco a poco va retratando muchas cuestiones sociales. Creo que uno de los aspectos principales fue la separación de la clase alta y la servidumbre, cuales eran las reglas, las funciones y las costumbres de cada una de las partes. Pero también abarca otros temas más profundos como el paso del tiempo, los errores cometidos, el duelo, la idealización de Europa por parte de los latinoamericanos, los prejuicios sociales, la clandestinidad en el ámbito medicinal, los secretos familiares.

Es una historia plagada de sentimientos y momentos emotivos. La ambientación fue lo que más me gustó de todo el libro pues sentía que estaba allí, en las playas de Ipanema, con el sol abrasador encima de mi cabeza, con toda esa cultura alrededor mio, la verdad es que me pareció fascinante.
Sí, hubieron un par de cosas que no me gustaron: me hubiera gustado que el final estuviera más desarrollado, que se supiera un poco más que fue de la vida de otros personajes con los que uno se termina encariñando y, de golpe, quedan relegados a un segundo plano.
Como para resumir, puedo decir que el libro me gustó muchísimo. André y Luana se van a quedar conmigo por un largo tiempo, seguramente.

:D

Brazilian-born doctor André Cabral is living in London when one day he receives a letter from his home country, which he left nearly thirty years ago. A letter he keeps in his pocket for weeks, but tells no one about. The letter prompts André to remember the days of his youth - torrid afternoons on Ipanema beach with his listless teenage friends, parties in elegant Rio apartments, his after-school job at his father's plastic surgery practice - and, above all, his secret infatuation with the daughter of his family's maid, the intoxicating Luana. Unable to resist the pull of the letter, André embarks on a journey back to Brazil to rediscover his past.

Flesh and Bone and Water

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