Brazil That Never Was

by A.J. Lees

A famed British neurologist embarks on an expedition in Brazil to follow the trail of Percy Fawcett, an occult-obsessed explorer who went missing in the Amazon rainforest and was the subject of the 2016 film The Lost City of Z.

As a boy growing up near Liverpool in the 1950s, Andrew Lees would visit the docks with his father to watch the ships from Brazil unload their exotic cargo of coffee, cotton bales, molasses, and cocoa. One day, his father gave him a dog-eared book called Exploration Fawcett. The book told the true story of Lieutenant Colonel Percy Fawcett, a British explorer who in 1925 had gone in search of a lost city in the Amazon and never returned. The riveting story of Fawcett's encounters with deadly animals and hostile tribes, his mission to discover an Atlantean civilization, and the many who lost their own lives when they went in search of him inspired the young Lees to believe that there were still earthly places where one could "fall off the edge."

Years later, after becoming a successful neurologist, Lees set off in search of the mysterious figure of Fawcett. What he found exceeded his wildest imaginings. With access to the cache of "Secret Papers," Lees discovered that Fawcett's quest was far stranger than searching for a lost city. There was a "greater mission," one that involved the occult and a belief in a community of evolved beings living in a hidden parallel plane in the Mato Grosso.

Lees traveled to Manaus in Fawcett's footsteps. After a time-bending psychedelic experience in the forest, he understood that his yearning for the imaginary Brazil of his boyhood, like Fawcett's search for an earthly paradise, was a nostalgia for what never was. Part travelogue, part memoir, Lees paints a portrait of an elusive Brazil, and of a flawed explorer whose doomed mission ruined lives.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Travel, History

152 pages, Hardcover

Published October 6, 2020

Reviews

[Jean-Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Turns out many of the explorers of yesteryear were just like the billionaires of today, only poorer. But self-obsessed, egotistical and in relentless pursuit of eccentric obsessions, all while maintaining the guise of 'for the greater good?' Check, check, check and check.

There are plenty of books about Percy Fawcett, but this one tackles Fawcett and Brazil as the magical stuff of a boy's dreams. Where other writers may revere Fawcett as one of the era's great explorers, A. J. Lees quickly comes to learn that 'the stuff of dreams' may in fact be the most accurate description of Fawcett's wild beliefs in occult theories which greatly affected his reality. Lees is critical of David Grann's The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, as well as its film adaptation, but like Grann and many others, ultimstely comcludes ...that my childhood knight [means] different things to different people [and] that he [is], in the end, unknowable.

This book leaves no doubt that Fawcett was a complete nut, and had he considered Mars a practicality, he would have set a course for it.

[emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘At night, as I lay listening to Del Shannon and the Everly Brothers on Radio Luxembourg—In the flickering dimness, hyacinth macaws eyed me from the curtain rail and, at the midnight hour, an ocelot paced the landing. The lines and corners of my room, where the peeling distemper met the ceiling, were teeming with wispy creatures—I was in love with an abundance of absence. The Brazil of my bedroom was an untouched, luxuriant planet bisected by a wide river, a place of blanks and guesses. It was a geography of unavailability that insulated me from my first failures, a haven of mystery beyond the scope of charts.’

Might have been able to love this more if I had been able to like Fawcett more. Lees goes on and on about him (rather beautifully) unfortunately I was not moved/charmed by his passionate ravings (because to reiterate, I just don’t really care about Fawcett). But I do really like the way Lees writes, so am still very keen to read his other books — a mixed lot, but in the best way (or so it seems like to me) — from William Burroughs (Mentored by a Madman: The William Burroughs Experiment), to Alzheimer’s (Alzheimer's: The Silent Plague) and Parkinson’s (lest we forget, his work with ‘brains’ is his bread and butter); and even football, yes, football as well, Ray of Hope (one of his besties, English footballer/midfielder, Ray Kennedy).

‘In the interim I had become a neurologist and learned to pay attention to detail and observe as well as see. Concerned patients hung on my every word, and I could detect brain injury in a crowded street. If I made mistakes or even bad judgements, I could ruin people’s lives. But, in spite of these disturbing deductive powers, I continued to feel as if something had gone missing. For some time I had not wanted to be face-to-face with my own life, but everywhere I kept finding it. I had come back now to the hurricane port in search of an invisible love.’

[Brian Hurwitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A captivating memoir that interleaves the here and now of a twenty-first century neurologist and there and then of a childhood spent in 1950s St Helens in Merseyside, which was dislocated by a move to a northern district of Leeds. What is it that connects a childhood spent in these streets with the fifteenth-century Spanish explorer, Martín Alonso Pinzón, the nineteenth-century German explorer, Alexander von Humboldt and the twentieth-century British explorer, Percy Harrison Fawcett, who disappeared in 1925 whilst on an expedition to locate the Lost City of Z somewhere near the Xingu river, a tributary of the Amazon? The answer is the exploratory forays of a schoolmaster and his young son - the author - to the Liverpool docks and a piece of sacking marked Café do Brasil washed up on the strandline to the port. This is an enchanting reliving of the lost malady of nostalgia by a leading British neurologist.

[TIM · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book takes the reader on a dreamlike journey, culminating in the Amazon – the epitome of an inspiring geographical term in itself. The author´s own childhood longings are linked to Percey Fawcett´s ruthless, fantasy-driven search for a presumed better world in Brazil. As the author follows the adventurer´s path, starting in British archives, he gradually finds out more of what was behind that misguided quest. The contrast between the sobering truth and his former hero leads him to embark on a mythical trip on the Amazon himself, where he ponders the journey through life, the role of disillusionment and how a change in the meaning of one aspect in life can lead to a new outlook on so much more.
The author has a great gift in telling these entwined storied in a fascinating way, choosing his words thoughtfully and often in unique and unexpected ways. The book gives pleasure on an emotional level and stimulates on an intellectual one.

[Mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in combination with The Lost World of Z by David Grann. Excellent exercise in understanding how recorded history is dependent upon who controls the narrative.

[Elite Group · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andrew Lees and his father spent weekends and holidays exploring Liverpool harbour and docks. Watching the ships arriving from Brazil with all their exotic cargo - coffee, cotton bales, molasses, cocoa. Andrew would write kept a list of each ship that they found in port and the special cargos each ship had brought with it.

His father seeing how interested he was in Brazil, gave him a dog-eared book called Exploration Fawcett. The book told the story of Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Fawcett, a British explorer who in 1925 had gone in search of a lost city in the Amazon, and never returned. This story of Fawcett's encounters, his mission to discover an Atlantean civilization, and the story of those who lost their lives when they went in search of him, inspired Lees to believe that there were still earthly places where one could 'fall off the edge'.

Andrew Lees decided to travel to Manaus and follow in Fawcett's footsteps. Several experiences later, he came to realise that like Fawcett, the imaginary Brazil paradise, was simply a dream.

Andrew Lees writing is a pleasure to read. Filled with wonderful poetry as well, this is a book that will help you create pictures in your mind of mystical places and times.

Rony

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of the book to review.

[Morag Forbes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Back in 2016 I saw ‘The Lost City of Z’ in the cinema and was intrigued withe mystery of the story. What happened to Percy Fawcett? I then forgot about the whole thing until seeing this book.
The author had faced the same curiosity that I had but had researched to a far greater deeper level. I was fascinated to learn about Fawcett’s obsession with the occult and the supernatural and more. Fawcett even believed that his son was actually a human vessel for some higher power. He also held a number of deeply racist views a towards the native peoples he met in Brazil. Fawcett was certainly not the clear cut heroic, if doomed, figure as he was portrayed in the film,
Where this book gets very muddled though is that its purpose isn’t really clear. It’s an odd mixture of autobiography of the author; historical research into Fawcett and those who knew him and had previously investigated him; then at the end a very short description of the authors journey to Brazil. It certainly isn’t a travelogue as described on the blurb.

[Pippa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wonderful book is a captivating read for anyone, a poetic memoir full of tender insights and wisdom, among other things revolving around the change in the perception of one´s childhood dreams. The gradual revelation of the true story of Percy Fawcett, explorer in name only, provides a sobering and much more trustworthy solution for those who were left puzzled having watched the film “The Lost City of Z”.

[Naomi K]

Reading this book is a pleasure to behold
Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2021
I found this book a delightful book. I found it by accident, it is a joy to read, to think about. along with receiving an insight into the mystics that colored Fawcett's mind.

This book has engaged my mind, along with the joy of reading words so compellingly written, by such a fine writer. The prose is beautiful, the imagery of a time past along with the effects of those past times on today.

[Ross Day · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Brazil that Never was is a captivating read that takes the reader back to the end of the Victorian age of British exploration. Lees has done a fine job at writing a comprehensive history of Percy Fawcetts career as well as his esoteric interests which are so little covered. Although a short read for myself, it has certainly cemented itself in my mind as one to read again when I once again catch Fawcett fever.

[Meg Lott · Rating 5 out of 5]

See email sent seperately..... ie review of the Brazil That Never Was written by AJ Lees.
Read and Reviewed by Meg Lott

[Constantine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange, but not strange enough.