What do you think?
Rate this book
Backlands
In this Bonnie and Clyde story of love and betrayal, a band of outlaws fight for control of the brutal Brazilian outback.
Set in the sparse frontier settlements of northeastern Brazil—a dry, forbidding, and wild region the size of Texas, known locally as the Sertao—Backlands tells the true story of a group of nomadic outlaws who reigned over the area from about 1922 until 1938. Taking from the rich, admired—and feared—by the poor, they were led by the famously charismatic bandit Lampiao. The gang maintained their influence by fighting off all the police and soldiers the region could muster.
A one-eyed goat rancher who first set out to avenge his father's murder in a lawless land, Lampiao proved to be too good a leader, fighter, and strategist to ever return home again. By 1925 he commanded the biggest gang of outlaws in Brazil. Known to this day as a "prince," Lampiao had everything: brains, money, power, charisma, and luck. Everything but love, until he met Maria Bonita.
"You teach me to make lace, and I'll teach you to make love"—this was the song the bandits marched to, across the vast open reaches of their starkly beautiful backlands, and it was Maria Bonita who made it come true. She was stuck in a loveless marriage when she met Lampiao, but she rode off with him, becoming "Queen of the Bandits." Together the couple—still celebrated folk heroes—would become the country's most wanted figures, protecting their extraordinary freedom through cunning.
Victoria Shorr's stunning literary debut tells Maria's story, her narrative of the intense freedoms, terrors, and sorrows of this chosen life, the end of which is clear to her all along. With the federal government in Rio mobilizing against the bandits, Backlands describes the epic final days of Lampiao’s "fatal month," July on the River of Disorder, as the gang struggles to summon their good star to save them one more time.
Set in the sparse frontier settlements of northeastern Brazil—a dry, forbidding, and wild region the size of Texas, known locally as the Sertao—Backlands tells the true story of a group of nomadic outlaws who reigned over the area from about 1922 until 1938. Taking from the rich, admired—and feared—by the poor, they were led by the famously charismatic bandit Lampiao. The gang maintained their influence by fighting off all the police and soldiers the region could muster.
A one-eyed goat rancher who first set out to avenge his father's murder in a lawless land, Lampiao proved to be too good a leader, fighter, and strategist to ever return home again. By 1925 he commanded the biggest gang of outlaws in Brazil. Known to this day as a "prince," Lampiao had everything: brains, money, power, charisma, and luck. Everything but love, until he met Maria Bonita.
"You teach me to make lace, and I'll teach you to make love"—this was the song the bandits marched to, across the vast open reaches of their starkly beautiful backlands, and it was Maria Bonita who made it come true. She was stuck in a loveless marriage when she met Lampiao, but she rode off with him, becoming "Queen of the Bandits." Together the couple—still celebrated folk heroes—would become the country's most wanted figures, protecting their extraordinary freedom through cunning.
Victoria Shorr's stunning literary debut tells Maria's story, her narrative of the intense freedoms, terrors, and sorrows of this chosen life, the end of which is clear to her all along. With the federal government in Rio mobilizing against the bandits, Backlands describes the epic final days of Lampiao’s "fatal month," July on the River of Disorder, as the gang struggles to summon their good star to save them one more time.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published May 4, 2015
8 people are currently reading
560 people want to read
About the author
Victoria Shorr
9 books63 followersVictoria Shorr is a writer and political activist who lived in Brazil for ten years. Currently she lives in Los Angeles, where she cofounded the Archer School for Girls, and is now working to found a college-prep school for girls on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
August 11, 2015
Sorry, but I did not like this book. Here is why.
The story line is confusing because you incessantly switch back and forth in time. On top of this I had difficulty with the Portuguese names. You also switch between historical data and personal perspectives.
Way too much repetition. How many times are we told that Lampiao (Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, 1897-1938) became a bandit because he sought revenge for the unjust killing of his father? This is not the only example.
The book is filled with violence, horrendous crimes, savage cruelty and corruption. Not just by the bandits but also the corrupt police forces. In fact the people felt closer to Lampiao than to their police. He stood for "justice" more than the police did, more than the authorities or any of those holding the reins. I concede that the book does describe vividly and accurately the deplorable reality of life in the Brazilian outback of the Sertao, one of the four sub-regions of the northeast of Brazil in the 1920s and 30s. Overpopulated, semi-arid hinterlands. You end with the death of Lampiao and his beloved, Maria Bonita (Maria Déia), fourteen years his junior. Heads on poles. It is graphic. I can in fact excuse the grizzly details, because that was the reality. It is just that you are also told of Lampiao's "love of life" - of dance, of music, of colored silks, of good food, of lovemaking. I never felt this love; it was always spoken of as LOST loved. Something once had but now gone. You never feel the happiness. Instead you feel loss and regret and hopelessness, because it is gone. Because it was futile. The couple had a child .....but her fate is doomed too. The book explains why. The book tries to get inside the heads of both Lampiao and Maria Bonito, but I never saw any happiness in this book or in them. You so need to feel it to balance the horror.
I didn't enjoy the melancholic tone of the language. The writing is too drippy, too emotional, too wordy.
Sections of the book are so very s-l-o-w. They never end. Maria Bonita's is one example.
Carla Mercer-Meyer's narration of the audiobook emphasized all the weaknesses of the writing. I would not recommend listening to the audiobook, particularly if Portuguese names are going to give you trouble, as they did me.
The story line is confusing because you incessantly switch back and forth in time. On top of this I had difficulty with the Portuguese names. You also switch between historical data and personal perspectives.
Way too much repetition. How many times are we told that Lampiao (Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, 1897-1938) became a bandit because he sought revenge for the unjust killing of his father? This is not the only example.
The book is filled with violence, horrendous crimes, savage cruelty and corruption. Not just by the bandits but also the corrupt police forces. In fact the people felt closer to Lampiao than to their police. He stood for "justice" more than the police did, more than the authorities or any of those holding the reins. I concede that the book does describe vividly and accurately the deplorable reality of life in the Brazilian outback of the Sertao, one of the four sub-regions of the northeast of Brazil in the 1920s and 30s. Overpopulated, semi-arid hinterlands. You end with the death of Lampiao and his beloved, Maria Bonita (Maria Déia), fourteen years his junior. Heads on poles. It is graphic. I can in fact excuse the grizzly details, because that was the reality. It is just that you are also told of Lampiao's "love of life" - of dance, of music, of colored silks, of good food, of lovemaking. I never felt this love; it was always spoken of as LOST loved. Something once had but now gone. You never feel the happiness. Instead you feel loss and regret and hopelessness, because it is gone. Because it was futile. The couple had a child .....but her fate is doomed too. The book explains why. The book tries to get inside the heads of both Lampiao and Maria Bonito, but I never saw any happiness in this book or in them. You so need to feel it to balance the horror.
I didn't enjoy the melancholic tone of the language. The writing is too drippy, too emotional, too wordy.
Sections of the book are so very s-l-o-w. They never end. Maria Bonita's is one example.
Carla Mercer-Meyer's narration of the audiobook emphasized all the weaknesses of the writing. I would not recommend listening to the audiobook, particularly if Portuguese names are going to give you trouble, as they did me.
June 6, 2016
Backlands tells the story of Lampaio, a Brazilian bandit and his girlfriend Maria Bonita as their Robin Hood- like reign over the arid frontier region nears its end. Poverty, drought, and corruption drove many young men and women to join the bandits that proliferated in northeastern Brazil in the 1920’s and 30’s.
Victoria Shorr brought the era and country alive as well as the folk heroes Lampaio and Maria Bonita. Excellent historical fiction.
Victoria Shorr brought the era and country alive as well as the folk heroes Lampaio and Maria Bonita. Excellent historical fiction.
June 9, 2015
Romantic folk-telling – A folk hero couple in Brazil’s outback (Northeast Brazil, 1922 -1938): If Victoria Shorr hadn’t lived in Brazil for ten years, I doubt she’d have written, or we’d be treated to, this unusual historical novel about nomadic banditry “full of beauty and danger,” at a time and place completely unfamiliar to most of us.
In fluid, mystical storytelling, Backlands lets us imagine what it might have been like for two legendary Brazilian outlaws – Lampião and Maria Bonita – to have roamed a remote, desert-like landscape “cut loose, as if by magic, from the worries of the rest of the world.” The surprise is how much we have in common with the humanity of the couple’s motives and passions – powerful themes of justice, fairness, freedom, happiness.
As much as Shorr’s debut novel is about two hero bandits whose hearts were stirred by music and dancing, it’s also about a sweeping terrain called the Sertão, where they hid out “under the stars” for so many years. The reader, too, is swept along by a landscape that makes you feel:
Because the outlaws, like their culture, were deeply religious, spiritual, superstitious – praying to saints to protect them, bring rains on their parched goat farms, keep them alive – there’s an otherworldly aura to the novel. Even its copper-sepia cover is dreamlike.
The Sertão, “bigger than Brazil,” is backcountry so removed from the rest of Brazil, “almost another country,” I’d guess most Brazilian’s haven’t even ventured there. But legends live on.
Still, if asked to name outlaws who’ve lived on in folklore, films, and books, Bonnie and Clyde, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Pancho Villa would come to mind. Surely not Lampião and Maria Bonita, unless you studied or fancied folklore history. The Portuguese, who came to Brazil in the 1500s, have a word for these do-gooder outlaws: cangaço. And, there’s a journal devoted to outlaw heroes, along with a term to describe them: “social bandits.” So, this is a tale, comprised of many tales, of polite banditry (“murder and courtesy”) about a “bandit with a good heart” and the younger woman he loved.
The Sertão is a strange mix of American southwestern cowboy country, Australian outback, and something more fantastic given the waters of the Rio Sao Francisco that slice through it and the “very exotic bush with a beautiful shape and large base called an ‘Umbo” tree that can thrive without the water, their fruit and shade could save you in the desert.”
On its lands live the rich and the powerful, but mostly the poor, the very poor, the powerless. The rich were corrupt politicians and wealthy landowners, especially those who lived on the coast. The poor were those who managed “day by day,” simple lives raising goats, some cattle, and in the best of times, some cotton. They were also the ones whose boundaries were trampled on, possessions stolen, and killed when the droughts and famine came, plentiful in this area near the equator.
That’s what happened to Lampião’s family, including the murder of his father. He’d been a “law-abiding cowboy” who tried to avenge and honor his family’s injustice in court. But when he failed, he chose to go outside the law, to vindicate all his people, stealing from the rich to help the poor. Regardless of who chased and betrayed him – police, soldiers, mercenaries – he always outsmarted them. Twenty years without getting caught is a long time. (There’s “no such thing as old age for bandits.”) Except during the month of July, when Lampião believed his fate would be sealed. The reader senses the fatalism. Knows what matters is the romanticism of the journey we’re on.
The historical backdrop is a 200-year history leading up to the time when a new President, Getúlio Vargas, came to power in 1930. He sought to centralize and improve his country, which meant ridding those who terrorized it. Not easy when the “King of the Bandits” was venerated as a “thunder god” – untouchable, beloved, protected by the people.
Lampião and Maria both had charisma and style. Lampião was the bravest one, a natural leader, expertly skilled with an exceptional tracking eye (he’d lost one, injured by cactus) for the land he loved:
Escape was also Maria’s reason for becoming a bandit. She escaped an arranged, loveless marriage at age 16 (how else could a poor family care for 11 children?) to an old shoemaker, six lonely, miserable years until the day she heard Lampião singing. She instantly knew he was her destiny, despite the risks. He famously sang about teaching love (in exchange for lacemaking, which the women did.) When they danced together, “she felt she was dancing for her mother, too, and her grandmother, her aunts and cousins, especially the ones who died young. Died of old age at thirty – the poor.”
All the characters are based on real historical ones, such as members of Lampião’s gang, like his brothers, Levino and Ezequiel, and, of course, his enemies. One was a lieutenant on the Piranhas (one of the region’s seven states) police force named Bezerra. The author has structured her novel to give voice to these two perspectives: a voice that speaks for the bandits governed by loyalty and love for their leader, a code of rules, and a “never-ending fear” of being caught. Often that voice is Maria’s. The other voice speaks for the police, forever trying to catch the outlaws. Nicely sprinkled throughout are newspaper accounts of so many who “seemed to have fallen in love with Lampião.” Why not? When he was happy, “it was like a warm soft blanket over them all.”
Lampião was “so interwoven with the fabric of life in the Sertão that to destroy him you’d have to destroy that fabric.” Which brings us back to where we began: An unusual novel about unusual banditry, fighting for a way of life totally unfamiliar to us. And gone. Until now.
Lorraine (EnchantedProse.com)
In fluid, mystical storytelling, Backlands lets us imagine what it might have been like for two legendary Brazilian outlaws – Lampião and Maria Bonita – to have roamed a remote, desert-like landscape “cut loose, as if by magic, from the worries of the rest of the world.” The surprise is how much we have in common with the humanity of the couple’s motives and passions – powerful themes of justice, fairness, freedom, happiness.
As much as Shorr’s debut novel is about two hero bandits whose hearts were stirred by music and dancing, it’s also about a sweeping terrain called the Sertão, where they hid out “under the stars” for so many years. The reader, too, is swept along by a landscape that makes you feel:
“overcome by the beauty, the light, coming across the vastness, a color of light you’ve never quite seen before … an endless stretch of wilderness, ‘caatinga’ they call it, dotted with thornbrush and all kinds of cactus, though it isn’t quite a desert. There are trees, thick, beautiful trees, well-shaped and spaced, as if planted in an English park. ‘A vast garden with no owner,’ the great Euclides called it a hundred years ago, and it’s still true. You listen, and hear nothing, and then goat bells in the distance.”The gentle prose isn’t meant to fit the decades of violence that spread throughout an area the size of Texas in the 1920s and 30s, by a gang of bandits led for fourteen years by Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, known as Lampião, before joined for another eight years by his “Beautiful Maria.” Instead, it evokes their hearts, in soft, melodious prose that could easily be read aloud, like legends passed down through the ages orally.
Because the outlaws, like their culture, were deeply religious, spiritual, superstitious – praying to saints to protect them, bring rains on their parched goat farms, keep them alive – there’s an otherworldly aura to the novel. Even its copper-sepia cover is dreamlike.
The Sertão, “bigger than Brazil,” is backcountry so removed from the rest of Brazil, “almost another country,” I’d guess most Brazilian’s haven’t even ventured there. But legends live on.
Still, if asked to name outlaws who’ve lived on in folklore, films, and books, Bonnie and Clyde, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Pancho Villa would come to mind. Surely not Lampião and Maria Bonita, unless you studied or fancied folklore history. The Portuguese, who came to Brazil in the 1500s, have a word for these do-gooder outlaws: cangaço. And, there’s a journal devoted to outlaw heroes, along with a term to describe them: “social bandits.” So, this is a tale, comprised of many tales, of polite banditry (“murder and courtesy”) about a “bandit with a good heart” and the younger woman he loved.
The Sertão is a strange mix of American southwestern cowboy country, Australian outback, and something more fantastic given the waters of the Rio Sao Francisco that slice through it and the “very exotic bush with a beautiful shape and large base called an ‘Umbo” tree that can thrive without the water, their fruit and shade could save you in the desert.”
On its lands live the rich and the powerful, but mostly the poor, the very poor, the powerless. The rich were corrupt politicians and wealthy landowners, especially those who lived on the coast. The poor were those who managed “day by day,” simple lives raising goats, some cattle, and in the best of times, some cotton. They were also the ones whose boundaries were trampled on, possessions stolen, and killed when the droughts and famine came, plentiful in this area near the equator.
That’s what happened to Lampião’s family, including the murder of his father. He’d been a “law-abiding cowboy” who tried to avenge and honor his family’s injustice in court. But when he failed, he chose to go outside the law, to vindicate all his people, stealing from the rich to help the poor. Regardless of who chased and betrayed him – police, soldiers, mercenaries – he always outsmarted them. Twenty years without getting caught is a long time. (There’s “no such thing as old age for bandits.”) Except during the month of July, when Lampião believed his fate would be sealed. The reader senses the fatalism. Knows what matters is the romanticism of the journey we’re on.
The historical backdrop is a 200-year history leading up to the time when a new President, Getúlio Vargas, came to power in 1930. He sought to centralize and improve his country, which meant ridding those who terrorized it. Not easy when the “King of the Bandits” was venerated as a “thunder god” – untouchable, beloved, protected by the people.
Lampião and Maria both had charisma and style. Lampião was the bravest one, a natural leader, expertly skilled with an exceptional tracking eye (he’d lost one, injured by cactus) for the land he loved:
“Loved the very distances, the great broad vistas with nothing to break them, loved the fact that it couldn’t be tamed, couldn’t be trusted, and loved even what it took from them to survive.”Moving back and forth in time within chapters, the novel is told in stories: of halcyon days and of the bandits’ escapes from the law, militias, anyone seeking glory to capture the “most wanted man in Brazil.”
Escape was also Maria’s reason for becoming a bandit. She escaped an arranged, loveless marriage at age 16 (how else could a poor family care for 11 children?) to an old shoemaker, six lonely, miserable years until the day she heard Lampião singing. She instantly knew he was her destiny, despite the risks. He famously sang about teaching love (in exchange for lacemaking, which the women did.) When they danced together, “she felt she was dancing for her mother, too, and her grandmother, her aunts and cousins, especially the ones who died young. Died of old age at thirty – the poor.”
All the characters are based on real historical ones, such as members of Lampião’s gang, like his brothers, Levino and Ezequiel, and, of course, his enemies. One was a lieutenant on the Piranhas (one of the region’s seven states) police force named Bezerra. The author has structured her novel to give voice to these two perspectives: a voice that speaks for the bandits governed by loyalty and love for their leader, a code of rules, and a “never-ending fear” of being caught. Often that voice is Maria’s. The other voice speaks for the police, forever trying to catch the outlaws. Nicely sprinkled throughout are newspaper accounts of so many who “seemed to have fallen in love with Lampião.” Why not? When he was happy, “it was like a warm soft blanket over them all.”
Lampião was “so interwoven with the fabric of life in the Sertão that to destroy him you’d have to destroy that fabric.” Which brings us back to where we began: An unusual novel about unusual banditry, fighting for a way of life totally unfamiliar to us. And gone. Until now.
Lorraine (EnchantedProse.com)
August 1, 2020
A one-eyed goat rancher who first set out to avenge his father's murder in a lawless land, Lampiao proved to be too good a leader, fighter, and strategist to ever return home again. By 1925, he commanded the biggest gang of outlaws in Brazil. Known to this day as a "prince", Lampiao had everything: brains, money, power, charisma, and luck. Everything but love, until he met Maria Bonita.
"You teach me to make lace, and I'll teach you to make love" - this was the song the bandits marched to, and it was Maria Bonita who made it come true. She was stuck in a loveless marriage when she met Lampiao, but she rode off with him, becoming "Queen of the Bandits". Together the couple - still celebrated folk heroes - would become the country's most wanted figures, protecting their extraordinary freedom through cunning.
Shorr’s prose is beautiful as she tells their tale in this historical fiction of Lampaio (I have no idea what’s wrong with my keyboard tonight) and Maria Bonito, who reign over Brazil’s Sertao from 1925-1938 as polite bandits, dispensing justice and keeping order in the inhospitable wilderness.
"You teach me to make lace, and I'll teach you to make love" - this was the song the bandits marched to, and it was Maria Bonita who made it come true. She was stuck in a loveless marriage when she met Lampiao, but she rode off with him, becoming "Queen of the Bandits". Together the couple - still celebrated folk heroes - would become the country's most wanted figures, protecting their extraordinary freedom through cunning.
Shorr’s prose is beautiful as she tells their tale in this historical fiction of Lampaio (I have no idea what’s wrong with my keyboard tonight) and Maria Bonito, who reign over Brazil’s Sertao from 1925-1938 as polite bandits, dispensing justice and keeping order in the inhospitable wilderness.
April 22, 2015
Victoria Shorr did a great job of bringing this story to life. While the tale of this Brazilian outlaw started off a bit slow, it quickly picked up the pace and turned into an exciting adventure. The story of the gang and the lady that follows them is a deep and fun romp through the timeframe. I got the copy of Backlands through the Goodreads Firstreads program and it was a good edition to my book collection.
April 8, 2015
Great book. I feel like I visited Brazil in the 1900's. What a strange and beautiful country and language. So unique, and Victoria Shorr does a wonderful job describing it.
January 20, 2020
This book seems custom-made to make into a movie. I do not consider that a bad thing, even if this story is not precisely the sort of story I am most fond of. There is an air of the Greek tragedy about this book, as it takes a real-life outlaw hero in Brazilian history who fought with police and ruled over a large and semi-arid section of Northeastern Brazil that spread over the inland parts of several states in the region. The story is not one that would be unfamiliar to any similar society with harsh divides between a corrupt elite and a large group of exploited rural workers and small town dwellers whose austere lives are punctuated by various acts of violence that are exploited by outlaw antiheroes. The broad outlines of this story are the sort that one finds in the American West in the stories of Jesse James and his gang, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or in the stories of Bonnie and Clyde that were roughly contemporaneous with his particular novel's timeline from 1922 to 1940 or so. One could easily imagine a Brazilian filmmaker taking this story and making a successful film out of it given its resonance with the rural history of Brazil and many other places.
This particular book is about 300 pages long and covers the period between 1922 and 1940, focusing on the period between 1932 and 1938. We are introduced to a group of people that centers around the conflict between a bandit chief named Lampião, his doll Maria, his fellow bandits and the people they interact with and engage in various protection rackets with, and the police forces they alternatively bargain with and fight with. The two narratives, one of them in the "present day" of 1938 and one of them a retrospective, both move towards a dramatic showdown where the bandit chief and his woman will be killed in a bloody shootout in the middle of the night that attempts to bring order to rural Brazil that had been lacking before when the central government did not consider it a critical matter to end the bandit disorders that had been associated with overly powerful rural grandees whose oppression encouraged lawlessness from the exploited and dispossessed. The false dilemma between anarchy and tyranny is never one that I have particularly appreciated, but the novel itself follows a well-worn path of stories going back to Robin Hood and many others like it.
Again, I must emphasize that while I respected the craft of this book, particularly the skillful way that the author managed to cut between different timelines as the plot progresses to its inevitable ending, this book was not written for me. And that's okay. There are many people this book was written for, including those who have a taste for outlaw antiheroes that is greater than my own. The author clearly has a great deal of sympathy for the outlaw chief Lampião and his beloved Maria Bonita, who ran away from her abusive husband to be with him. The novel does a great job at showing how it is that popular outlaw chiefs are defeated through central governments that feel the need to use violent coercion to destroy outlaw forces that threaten the public reputation of the regime as well as snitches who are able to provide information about where the outlaws are operating. There is a lot of ambivalence to be found here, as pressure is placed from on high upon corrupt officers who reluctantly follow up on the hunches of turncoats who have their own reasons to wish to betray the bandit chiefs and who have the luck of surprising the bandits and destroying them in a massive shootout that the author clearly feels reluctant to celebrate. I'm generally a supporter of the forces of order, preferring even imperfect orders to the disorder of bandit chieftains. But not everyone feels the same way, obviously.
This particular book is about 300 pages long and covers the period between 1922 and 1940, focusing on the period between 1932 and 1938. We are introduced to a group of people that centers around the conflict between a bandit chief named Lampião, his doll Maria, his fellow bandits and the people they interact with and engage in various protection rackets with, and the police forces they alternatively bargain with and fight with. The two narratives, one of them in the "present day" of 1938 and one of them a retrospective, both move towards a dramatic showdown where the bandit chief and his woman will be killed in a bloody shootout in the middle of the night that attempts to bring order to rural Brazil that had been lacking before when the central government did not consider it a critical matter to end the bandit disorders that had been associated with overly powerful rural grandees whose oppression encouraged lawlessness from the exploited and dispossessed. The false dilemma between anarchy and tyranny is never one that I have particularly appreciated, but the novel itself follows a well-worn path of stories going back to Robin Hood and many others like it.
Again, I must emphasize that while I respected the craft of this book, particularly the skillful way that the author managed to cut between different timelines as the plot progresses to its inevitable ending, this book was not written for me. And that's okay. There are many people this book was written for, including those who have a taste for outlaw antiheroes that is greater than my own. The author clearly has a great deal of sympathy for the outlaw chief Lampião and his beloved Maria Bonita, who ran away from her abusive husband to be with him. The novel does a great job at showing how it is that popular outlaw chiefs are defeated through central governments that feel the need to use violent coercion to destroy outlaw forces that threaten the public reputation of the regime as well as snitches who are able to provide information about where the outlaws are operating. There is a lot of ambivalence to be found here, as pressure is placed from on high upon corrupt officers who reluctantly follow up on the hunches of turncoats who have their own reasons to wish to betray the bandit chiefs and who have the luck of surprising the bandits and destroying them in a massive shootout that the author clearly feels reluctant to celebrate. I'm generally a supporter of the forces of order, preferring even imperfect orders to the disorder of bandit chieftains. But not everyone feels the same way, obviously.
April 11, 2018
This is an intriguing book for those wanting a greater understanding of the development of Brazil as it was in the 1920's. It helps the reader understand just how huge Brazil truly is and it reminded me of tales or movies one recalls of the Wild West settlement in the late 1800's.
The focus is primarily on a band of nomads who travel a region in NE portion of Brazil, where most of the land is undeveloped and a smattering of communities spread hither and yon. These are the towns where Lampiao and his bandits regularly terrorize but they only rob from the rich. It is because of this that many admire him and his legend is more a story of awe than fear. Ms. Shorr brings this story to live in a vivid manner.
I read this story several years ago and perhaps I do it a disservice with 3 stars. I remember enjoying the characters immensely. That said, at times I wearied of the details and the seemingly unending story of their travels, which was often a tale of hardship as they sought enough food to survive and while they had times of plenty it was infrequent.
I would recommend it to all fans of westerns and anyone, who would enjoy a Portuguese version of a modern day Robin Hood. There is a love story as well and it does adds energy to this tale of survival.
The focus is primarily on a band of nomads who travel a region in NE portion of Brazil, where most of the land is undeveloped and a smattering of communities spread hither and yon. These are the towns where Lampiao and his bandits regularly terrorize but they only rob from the rich. It is because of this that many admire him and his legend is more a story of awe than fear. Ms. Shorr brings this story to live in a vivid manner.
I read this story several years ago and perhaps I do it a disservice with 3 stars. I remember enjoying the characters immensely. That said, at times I wearied of the details and the seemingly unending story of their travels, which was often a tale of hardship as they sought enough food to survive and while they had times of plenty it was infrequent.
I would recommend it to all fans of westerns and anyone, who would enjoy a Portuguese version of a modern day Robin Hood. There is a love story as well and it does adds energy to this tale of survival.
June 15, 2017
I found this book to be entertaining, but slow moving at times. I did admire the manner in which the author highlighted the dynamic of how the national/local powers pitted normal people against each other. As the reluctant policeman converged on the bandit band, he continuously thought of how there were no true differences between them. That realization was striking.
June 14, 2021
Fascinating tale of love, adventure and betrayal, based on the true story of the famous charismatic bandit Lampiao and his love Maria Bonita. They establish a mobile kingdom of their own in the wilderness of northeastern Brazil from 1922-1938, taking from the rich and giving to the poor who support them, hide them,risk their lives for the "Queen of the Bandits" and her prince.
March 10, 2018
How does the author get me so interested in the people who live in the backlands of Brazil during the early part of the 20th century? I don't know, but I couldn't put this down.
Good bits about daily life, the bandits' strategy, the people's love for the bandits.
Good bits about daily life, the bandits' strategy, the people's love for the bandits.
August 28, 2018
This book was pretty much can't-put-it-down and if you had to I-wonder-what-they're-up-to-now engrossing to me. Based on a true story of Bandits in Brazil, this books was very well written. I never would have thought the subject matter would interest me but Ms. Shorr made it so.
January 4, 2025
life among the bandits of NE Brazil in 1925.
October 11, 2015
This book does not quite succeed as a historical novel, but it works brilliantly as a novelized retelling of history. The author has expertly researched and absorbed the long and confusing story of the folk-hero outlaw, Lampiao, and she spins it out through the perspective of three major characters--Lampiao himself, his wife Maria Bonita, and Bezerra, the officer who finally brings the outlaws down. Shorr's voice is humane, expressive, and quite beautiful. She brings her characters to life, and wonderfully evokes the dusty environment of the Sertao, which I guess is somewhat like our Great Plains. The problem with the novel is that there just isn't enough plot, and we know what is going to happen at the end. I supopose that's what happens when an author starts with, and remains loyal to, a true story.
By the way there on YouTube there is some amazing footage of the outlaws as well as great renditions of their famous song, which is quoted in the book.
By the way there on YouTube there is some amazing footage of the outlaws as well as great renditions of their famous song, which is quoted in the book.
November 7, 2015
The book had some interest because of the time (1930s) and place Eastern central Brazil (between Rio and the mouth of the Amazon in that bulge into the Atlantic but just inland). An area and people that I knew nothing about. Ranchers and cowboys in a dry desolate land scraping together a living. It is about Robin Hood type bandits but more towards the fearsome killer side. It had a love story interest that got a little mushy and had religious overtones. Perhaps mostly fiction but the author needed to fill out the story. Ending was about as expected but that was revealed at the start. I gave it 3 stars because of the unique to me subject matter. As a novel, it only rated two stars in my opinion.
January 18, 2016
I am so very glad I picked up this book...it is definitely one of my favorites and I can't stop thinking about it. It is worth mentioning that the first chapter or two can be difficult to get through, but once I was hooked on the story I did go back to read the beginning and it all made a lot more sense. The writing is beautiful and is a tribute to both the history and the legend that was Brazil in the early 1900's. I honestly cannot imagine this story being told any better than this..just perfection.
Edited to add: I am grateful to the reviewer that mentioned the footage of the bandits on Youtube. Definitely worth watching after reading the book!
Edited to add: I am grateful to the reviewer that mentioned the footage of the bandits on Youtube. Definitely worth watching after reading the book!
May 8, 2015
I received this book through Goodreads first reads from the author. So this book is very strange. Take the first three chapters and the last 10 and that's all youneed. The garbage in the middle was just that. Garbage. I don't usually show bad reviews but this was extre mely hard to follow. to many characters and similar names and tons of jumping back and forth.
September 3, 2015
'Backlands' is based on the true story of a gang of Brazilian bandits in the early 20th century. Victoria Shorr brings both the romantic myth and harsh reality to light, and the ending, though not unexpected, is both thrilling and tragic. It's not a particularly long book, but its poetic quality makes you linger over the words - just as the characters savoured their stolen freedom.
December 10, 2015
I have been away from Goodreads for most of this year after getting an e-reader and an account snafu etc. But I had to start back up after finishing this book because i love it and hope to recommend it to others and find more of her work.
January 15, 2016
Interesting story, but much too long.
August 22, 2016
Lets be honest---this read like badly written fan fiction.
April 17, 2015
i received this book for free as part of a first reads promotion
January 24, 2016
Brazilian robbers folk heros
October 18, 2017
I wanted this story to succeed, as I was intrigued by the time period, historical setting, and some of the characters. The downfall for me, unfortunately, was the confusing jostling of time frames. A few of these 'back-and-forths' would have been fine, but ultimately, numerous switches interrupted the flow of the story to the point of exasperation. Each time I had to re-amp my interest in the story.
Some of that is my fault, of course, as other readers may be able to handle this better; and may even find it preferable. I think the author is a fine writer. A reader who is more attuned to a zig-zag pattern of story telling will probaby fined this to be an admirable read.
Some of that is my fault, of course, as other readers may be able to handle this better; and may even find it preferable. I think the author is a fine writer. A reader who is more attuned to a zig-zag pattern of story telling will probaby fined this to be an admirable read.
March 19, 2018
Interesting read. Not all that good but....what a terrible way of life for these first settlers. Live long and suffer every day turning the soil to make a living or become a bandit and die young. SAD.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews