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Tropicália
In the heady days before a New Year’s Eve party on the bustling sands of Brazil’s Copacabana Beach, a family reckons with a matriarch’s long-awaited return, causing old secrets to come to light in this infectiously vibrant 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.
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.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published July 18, 2023
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5093 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 105 reviews
August 15, 2023
Brilliant.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - a place I’ve never been but I feel like I’ve just teleported from. Where to begin with a story like this, I hope I do it justice.
Tropiçália, Harold Rogers' debut novel has two homes, Brazil and America but we spend most of the story following the days in Rio leading up to New Year’s Eve where all the tension in the family and in the city of Brazil reaches a boiling point.
Daniel Cunha is our first narrator who is struggling after the love of his life, Leticia, has dumped him, his grandfather has just died, and it’s been years since he spoke to his mother after she abandoned the family to live in America and New Year’s Eve is approaching… the anniversary of the day everyone in his families lives were permanently fractured and have yet to recover from.
The story seamlessly switches POV of all the different members of the family between 3 generations and it really has me reflect on who this story is really about. I have my guess but I’ll save it to not influence those who will read.
This book is so many things … authentic, intense, harsh, emotional, a bit dark, captivating, suspenseful, and humanizing.
The structure and format worked so well for me. Fluency in Portuguese and the use of quotation marks are not needed because the pace and Harold’s talented writing of the stream of consciousness and internal dialogue of the characters do most of the heavy lifting.
The Cunha family is as complicated and complex as they come. Following them we see the themes of revenge, generational trauma, forgiveness, redemption, deception, abuse, adultery, beytrayal & then some…
One of the biggest - repeating the mistakes and passing on the pain from the generation before.
“It’s a mistake, isn’t it? Naming children after ghosts? It’s like pouring poison in a sapling’s soil. They grow up, if they make it that far, already withered”
Do we have the ability to change our ways or are we trapped by circumstance?
How do you know who you can trust and believe? A common thread I have noticed a lot when I read multi-generational family dramas is the power of secrecy. I felt so much for the characters, where each generation was set up in a world where you can’t trust anyone, even your own mother.
“Though if there was one often repeated mistake in history it was thinking any exterior appearances corresponded with an inner truth”
My highlighter was avidly used which is such a treat. Harold also gave me a bonus gift of seeing my name for the first time used in a story and now one of my favorite lines ever written.
“Was living totally Leticialess for the first time in half a decade. And it sucked!”
America the Great - how such a country with a reputation for changing people’s lives for the better caused so much pain and fractured this one.
“America sunk me. Sunk my family. I was gonna get my revenge.”
This is a story where you truly can be convinced bloodlines can be cursed. The plot twists and turns had me audibly gasp and with all chaos, death, and pain we see this family experience, there is still so much love, and the ending left on such a hopeful note.
I loved this story. An unforgettable debut. Congrats Harold and thank you Atria for the opportunity to read.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - a place I’ve never been but I feel like I’ve just teleported from. Where to begin with a story like this, I hope I do it justice.
Tropiçália, Harold Rogers' debut novel has two homes, Brazil and America but we spend most of the story following the days in Rio leading up to New Year’s Eve where all the tension in the family and in the city of Brazil reaches a boiling point.
Daniel Cunha is our first narrator who is struggling after the love of his life, Leticia, has dumped him, his grandfather has just died, and it’s been years since he spoke to his mother after she abandoned the family to live in America and New Year’s Eve is approaching… the anniversary of the day everyone in his families lives were permanently fractured and have yet to recover from.
The story seamlessly switches POV of all the different members of the family between 3 generations and it really has me reflect on who this story is really about. I have my guess but I’ll save it to not influence those who will read.
This book is so many things … authentic, intense, harsh, emotional, a bit dark, captivating, suspenseful, and humanizing.
The structure and format worked so well for me. Fluency in Portuguese and the use of quotation marks are not needed because the pace and Harold’s talented writing of the stream of consciousness and internal dialogue of the characters do most of the heavy lifting.
The Cunha family is as complicated and complex as they come. Following them we see the themes of revenge, generational trauma, forgiveness, redemption, deception, abuse, adultery, beytrayal & then some…
One of the biggest - repeating the mistakes and passing on the pain from the generation before.
“It’s a mistake, isn’t it? Naming children after ghosts? It’s like pouring poison in a sapling’s soil. They grow up, if they make it that far, already withered”
Do we have the ability to change our ways or are we trapped by circumstance?
How do you know who you can trust and believe? A common thread I have noticed a lot when I read multi-generational family dramas is the power of secrecy. I felt so much for the characters, where each generation was set up in a world where you can’t trust anyone, even your own mother.
“Though if there was one often repeated mistake in history it was thinking any exterior appearances corresponded with an inner truth”
My highlighter was avidly used which is such a treat. Harold also gave me a bonus gift of seeing my name for the first time used in a story and now one of my favorite lines ever written.
“Was living totally Leticialess for the first time in half a decade. And it sucked!”
America the Great - how such a country with a reputation for changing people’s lives for the better caused so much pain and fractured this one.
“America sunk me. Sunk my family. I was gonna get my revenge.”
This is a story where you truly can be convinced bloodlines can be cursed. The plot twists and turns had me audibly gasp and with all chaos, death, and pain we see this family experience, there is still so much love, and the ending left on such a hopeful note.
I loved this story. An unforgettable debut. Congrats Harold and thank you Atria for the opportunity to read.
Read
March 31, 2023A powerful debut set in Rio de Janeiro, in the tragic days leading up to the New Year.
March 20, 2023
First of all. 😭
Ok. So it’s hard to say if this book made so much sense to me because I’m a Brazilian living in the US. Or it could just be that this family saga goes beyond that, because after all, complicated families exist everywhere in the world.
This book had me on the edge of my seat, waiting for the next misfortune to happen to the Cunha family, hoping that it wouldn’t, but knowing full well that in a country like Brazil, the family you are born into will most likely determine how you’ll spend the rest of your life, with little to no opportunity to change or break the cycle.
It was told from the point of view of most of the family members in the span of about 4 days, which allowed a unique development to each character, and helped you connect with and really feel for them.
I don’t know that this book paints Brazil in the best light but I think only another Brazilian would understand that it is nothing short of a love letter to this brutal, and wonderfully complicated country that no matter where you find yourself, you will always long for. Even when you know that life there is not for you.
Thank you Harold Rodgers for my copy, I will be sharing this with all of my amigos expatriados. 💚💛
Ok. So it’s hard to say if this book made so much sense to me because I’m a Brazilian living in the US. Or it could just be that this family saga goes beyond that, because after all, complicated families exist everywhere in the world.
This book had me on the edge of my seat, waiting for the next misfortune to happen to the Cunha family, hoping that it wouldn’t, but knowing full well that in a country like Brazil, the family you are born into will most likely determine how you’ll spend the rest of your life, with little to no opportunity to change or break the cycle.
It was told from the point of view of most of the family members in the span of about 4 days, which allowed a unique development to each character, and helped you connect with and really feel for them.
I don’t know that this book paints Brazil in the best light but I think only another Brazilian would understand that it is nothing short of a love letter to this brutal, and wonderfully complicated country that no matter where you find yourself, you will always long for. Even when you know that life there is not for you.
Thank you Harold Rodgers for my copy, I will be sharing this with all of my amigos expatriados. 💚💛
March 8, 2024
[4.5/5 stars]
Rio de Janeiro, Copacabana - before the New Year’s Eve, the Cunha family waits for the (unwanted) return of a matriarch from America, excavating old secrets of two homes, two peoples and two countries.
Rogers transports one to the cacophony of Rio's chaos - poverty, political unrest and the threat of violence reign this land marked by natural beauty, while also looming over the members of the Cunha family. Told from multiple POVs from different members, the author captures the complexity of this family - when lies are the foundation of the endless misery, the characters are selfish and calloused, haunted by the permanent state of grief and pain. Dreaming of a life they don't have, the bad choices draw them away from the possible salvation, however it might come later in unexpected ways.
The story is deeply human and I was consumed by all the emotions, coming from the raw exploration of abandonment, loss, revenge, abuse, betrayal, identity, trauma and generational curse. There are those willing to take a chance at life; those seeking to make amends; those purging themselves of their sins; ultimately, these people are deserving of love.
Rogers crafts a slow burn story, written with a propulsive prose which long paragraphs reward one attentive to a plot that wends through reflections. The untranslated Portuguese adds authenticity to the narrative and for this Brazilian, 'que delícia ler as palavras em português'. With Carioca vibes, the plot is chaotic in the best way, populated by multi-dimensional characters whose lives give things for readers to ponder over 'what it means to be a good person?' Finally, the bittersweet ending provides a lens into love, restoration and forgiveness.
I thought it would be better if the POV was named in the beginning of each chapter, the disorientation coming from the voices that didn't feel distinct enough. Perhaps this is the author's intention, as the characters are swept up in the same old water, sharing a messiness that is reflection of brokenness.
TROPICÁLIA is an unforgettable and gorgeous debut, a story so dear to my heart. This book is perfect for readers who enjoy a moving intergenerational story infused with Brazilian culture and flawed characters. I am eager to see what Rogers writes next.
[ I received an ARC from the publisher - Atria books . All opinions are my own ]
Rio de Janeiro, Copacabana - before the New Year’s Eve, the Cunha family waits for the (unwanted) return of a matriarch from America, excavating old secrets of two homes, two peoples and two countries.
Rogers transports one to the cacophony of Rio's chaos - poverty, political unrest and the threat of violence reign this land marked by natural beauty, while also looming over the members of the Cunha family. Told from multiple POVs from different members, the author captures the complexity of this family - when lies are the foundation of the endless misery, the characters are selfish and calloused, haunted by the permanent state of grief and pain. Dreaming of a life they don't have, the bad choices draw them away from the possible salvation, however it might come later in unexpected ways.
The story is deeply human and I was consumed by all the emotions, coming from the raw exploration of abandonment, loss, revenge, abuse, betrayal, identity, trauma and generational curse. There are those willing to take a chance at life; those seeking to make amends; those purging themselves of their sins; ultimately, these people are deserving of love.
Rogers crafts a slow burn story, written with a propulsive prose which long paragraphs reward one attentive to a plot that wends through reflections. The untranslated Portuguese adds authenticity to the narrative and for this Brazilian, 'que delícia ler as palavras em português'. With Carioca vibes, the plot is chaotic in the best way, populated by multi-dimensional characters whose lives give things for readers to ponder over 'what it means to be a good person?' Finally, the bittersweet ending provides a lens into love, restoration and forgiveness.
I thought it would be better if the POV was named in the beginning of each chapter, the disorientation coming from the voices that didn't feel distinct enough. Perhaps this is the author's intention, as the characters are swept up in the same old water, sharing a messiness that is reflection of brokenness.
TROPICÁLIA is an unforgettable and gorgeous debut, a story so dear to my heart. This book is perfect for readers who enjoy a moving intergenerational story infused with Brazilian culture and flawed characters. I am eager to see what Rogers writes next.
[ I received an ARC from the publisher - Atria books . All opinions are my own ]
July 14, 2023
I liked Tropicália, but I struggled a lot with the characterization and the pacing of the book. This is the story of a family told from differing points of view all culminating in one fateful new years night. I liked seeing background and choices of the grandparents and parents and how that affected the children. That being said I wish there had been a little more defining of characters. Each characters inner monologue was such a stream of consciousness, especially Daniels. I had trouble if I picked up in the middle of the chapter, sometimes even at the start of a chapter telling who was thinking at the moment because the characters felt too similar in how they communicated their thoughts. It wasn't clear if this was a conscious choice to say something about the characters or not. I also felt like it took half the book for me to get fully invested in the characters and what was happening. Overall I love a book that tackles hard topics, and this is definitely a vulnerable debut from Rogers.
July 22, 2023
Thanks to NetGalley and Atria books for the eARC.
A wonderful, brutally honest drama, brilliantly written in multiple voices comprising every member of a family living in Rio. The author grounds the experiences of his characters in a short, exceptionally violent, period of time between Christmas and New Years in Rio, yet allows them to each reminisce at their own pace to give the reader an understanding about how this family came to this unhappy moment. The voice of each member of the family feels authentic (and the dialogue is extraordinary) and their instincts and decisionmaking, however questionable, are described with total emotional accuracy, allowing the understanding of the larger family tragedy to be told in emotional terms by each character. In this story, individual choice means much less than the larger circumstances that created the tragedy, but they must each individually try to find a way to escape intergenerational trauma. The toughest lesson of the book is that almost no one in the family is capable of providing anything positive to any other member of the family. The only way to heal is to walk away. One of my favorite books of the year.
A wonderful, brutally honest drama, brilliantly written in multiple voices comprising every member of a family living in Rio. The author grounds the experiences of his characters in a short, exceptionally violent, period of time between Christmas and New Years in Rio, yet allows them to each reminisce at their own pace to give the reader an understanding about how this family came to this unhappy moment. The voice of each member of the family feels authentic (and the dialogue is extraordinary) and their instincts and decisionmaking, however questionable, are described with total emotional accuracy, allowing the understanding of the larger family tragedy to be told in emotional terms by each character. In this story, individual choice means much less than the larger circumstances that created the tragedy, but they must each individually try to find a way to escape intergenerational trauma. The toughest lesson of the book is that almost no one in the family is capable of providing anything positive to any other member of the family. The only way to heal is to walk away. One of my favorite books of the year.
January 22, 2024
24021: there is apparently genre of television limited-run something like 'soap operas' known as 'telenovelas' in Brazil. having never seen one but having read of their usual melodramatic nature, I think this might be prose version. it is entirely probable all cultures have equally extravagant family dynamics in lives and arts. one of which reflects the other but it is unclear who is reflected and who is real. so I go by descriptions of other GR reviewers who are Brazilian, and seem united in claiming its verity. this is not my family. we are quiet, polite, calm. we are Canadian. but as tropical vacation, as spectacle to entertain, as saudade to live, this is very good work...
July 25, 2023
There is a furious pacing to this family story, which I loved, drenched in the heat, scene, and reality of Rio. Daniel, Lucia, and their mother all have unresolved and festering familial baggage. Each moving through their world coping apart yet with an air of delusion, not really acknowledging what is at the core of the schism that has held them all apart.
But Rogers takes us into the mind of each individual breaking down their past thoughts and actions and the rippling effects it had not only on each other but their very familial structure. Hurt people hurt people, and selfish people completely damage psyches and identities. And then they emerge from the wreckage of themselves, moving towards mending fences and moving forward.
I enjoy multigenerational, multi-perspective novels. Every voice builds the story out more and gives the reader more blocks from which they are able to garner more of a particular character. What an affecting read, I rooted for the family to heal together, it was not complete yet there ws that glimmer of hope that going forward the Cunhas would be better than the those who came before.
But Rogers takes us into the mind of each individual breaking down their past thoughts and actions and the rippling effects it had not only on each other but their very familial structure. Hurt people hurt people, and selfish people completely damage psyches and identities. And then they emerge from the wreckage of themselves, moving towards mending fences and moving forward.
I enjoy multigenerational, multi-perspective novels. Every voice builds the story out more and gives the reader more blocks from which they are able to garner more of a particular character. What an affecting read, I rooted for the family to heal together, it was not complete yet there ws that glimmer of hope that going forward the Cunhas would be better than the those who came before.
January 9, 2025
This book wasn’t for me but book club was enough incentive to finish it. It was sad without enough redemption and I found the switching points of view without signaling confusing.
September 22, 2023
shoutout southwest for the shit WiFi, otherwise I would have been working
March 4, 2024
⭐️4.5! ⭐️ This was a beautiful and haunting book! It was Incredibly well written, with precise language that makes you feel like you’re in Brazil running around with the characters. This book highlights how complicated humans are and no one is clearly the victim or the villain. I loved how the story takes place in multiple perspectives and I feel like it’s an important read as an American tourist. If you can handle some tears then I highly recommend this book.
June 12, 2024
this book was super engaging and easy to get lost in. a lot of the characters’ voices felt the same which was a little bit of a bummer. the ending was less than stellar but i enjoyed reading it and the plot was exciting. portuguese sounds so difficult to learn ugh
April 16, 2024
Gorgeously poetic. Tragic! Grab a dictionary for the $20 words. And a tissue for the end. Incredible book!
September 20, 2023
I saw Tropicalia and read what it was about and immediately thought I would love it. But I knew that it would probably leave me feeling heavy as well and I was right. I had the same feeling I had when I read Sharks in the time of Saviours, seeing these characters go through pain and heartbreak that can only come from family, the near supernatural amount of misfortune, dreams and lives being dashed, somehow reaching a sad resolution, and feeling so bittersweet about their story by the end.
There was something about the parts written in Daniel's voice, they were so electric and intense, I just wanted him to tell the whole story. And the rest of the family's parts, mostly women, felt awful and full of bitterness but also sympathetic and showed that they were victims of circumstance, and I liked them too.
This was a really good story and I don't know how to put into proper detail just how and why I loved it, but I did.
There was something about the parts written in Daniel's voice, they were so electric and intense, I just wanted him to tell the whole story. And the rest of the family's parts, mostly women, felt awful and full of bitterness but also sympathetic and showed that they were victims of circumstance, and I liked them too.
This was a really good story and I don't know how to put into proper detail just how and why I loved it, but I did.
November 24, 2023
As someone who has Brazilian parents, this spoke to me using words I didn’t think would be possible to describe the complexity of a large, populous city such as Rio. Even though my own family lives six hours away to the west, this novel encompasses the complexity of Brazil in a matter of a few days. There is some order and progress (after all it’s on our flag) but there is still a lot we need to achieve in order to be taken seriously. So many people assume we are still a third world country with danger lurking around every corner. Pockets of every city in the world has danger and misfortune but when you know where to go & can blend in, there is so much beauty to behold. The Cunha family & friends are no where near perfect but they embody the conflicting views of the older generation vs the younger one.
March 13, 2023
Daniel Cunha has lots of problems, first and foremost he wants to win his pregnant girlfriend back. There are some police issues, a death in the family and the return of his long lost mother to contend with as well...
The Cunhas are a troubled lot - cursed you might say. And as we near New Year's Eve and the return of Daniel and his sister Lucia's mother, the curse, the trauma and the unrest come to a head in the noisy and larger than life Copacabana beach of Rio De Janeiro. If you love messy family drama, lyrical and larger than life stories than Tropicália is for you!
#Atria #Topicália #haroldrogers
The Cunhas are a troubled lot - cursed you might say. And as we near New Year's Eve and the return of Daniel and his sister Lucia's mother, the curse, the trauma and the unrest come to a head in the noisy and larger than life Copacabana beach of Rio De Janeiro. If you love messy family drama, lyrical and larger than life stories than Tropicália is for you!
#Atria #Topicália #haroldrogers
October 12, 2023
wow.
are we sure this is a debut??
since i turned the last page months ago, i have been on a futile quest to replicate the experience i had with 'Tropicalia'. Harold masterfully breathes so much life into each of the characters, making the Cunha family come alive on every page. hearing from each of their perspectives was refreshing and felt so authentic, their pain palpable and relatable while still remaining unputdownable.
what a gift to be along for the rise of a remarkable talent. absolutely loved getting lost in this story that really left me spellbound and REELING!
are we sure this is a debut??
since i turned the last page months ago, i have been on a futile quest to replicate the experience i had with 'Tropicalia'. Harold masterfully breathes so much life into each of the characters, making the Cunha family come alive on every page. hearing from each of their perspectives was refreshing and felt so authentic, their pain palpable and relatable while still remaining unputdownable.
what a gift to be along for the rise of a remarkable talent. absolutely loved getting lost in this story that really left me spellbound and REELING!
September 13, 2023
An incredibly strong debut novel. It feels as if East of Eden was written by Sally Rooney but it also took place in Rio?
May 2, 2024
3,5*
The pace threw me off sometimes
The pace threw me off sometimes
July 10, 2023
Special thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.
I really enjoyed this book told by different POVs of a time between Christmas and New Years to a family in Rio.
The dialogue was great and the family was dysfunctional. I enjoyed how each POV reminisced about the time and what happened to this dysfunctional family and the tragedy through the eyes of intergenerational voices.
I highly recommend this book. It deserves a high 4 stars maybe even 4.5 which actually would turn into a 5 star book. I gave it 4 stars because it's an outstanding.
debut.
I really enjoyed this book told by different POVs of a time between Christmas and New Years to a family in Rio.
The dialogue was great and the family was dysfunctional. I enjoyed how each POV reminisced about the time and what happened to this dysfunctional family and the tragedy through the eyes of intergenerational voices.
I highly recommend this book. It deserves a high 4 stars maybe even 4.5 which actually would turn into a 5 star book. I gave it 4 stars because it's an outstanding.
debut.
July 10, 2023
Very appreciative of this giveaway win!
I was traveling when my copy arrived & had a late start on reading it. But, once I began I thoroughly enjoyed it! This wasn't a read I would have necessarily bought for myself on first glance, but the writing and language hooked me in. My only critique would be that at some points the wording required some additional research to fully understand. All in all was a great read!
I was traveling when my copy arrived & had a late start on reading it. But, once I began I thoroughly enjoyed it! This wasn't a read I would have necessarily bought for myself on first glance, but the writing and language hooked me in. My only critique would be that at some points the wording required some additional research to fully understand. All in all was a great read!
March 11, 2024
If I had to try to encompass Tropicália in just one line, the most fitting way would be to say that it packs a punch. While aspects of the book jacket description couldn't be more on the nose (which I can say now that I've finished the novel) if they tried, that same description is initially daunting to say the least with its labyrinthine twists, turns, and outright storyline messiness. Though I'm not Brasilian, being fluent in Brasilian Portuguese and having spent extended time in Brasil made Tropicália resonate with me in a way it likely won't/wouldn't for most aside from actual Brasilians (and Cariocas in particular).
For me, the novel was equal parts nostalgic (particularly, Rogers's references to/mention of: the futility of napkins at Carioca food establishments (9), pastéis (throughout), Lojas Americanas (138), rabanada (192), Bob's (193), Catete (222) and engrossing. The narrative felt very Brasilian to me, including in its use of language. So if you're a reader who gets exasperated having to look up words in another language as you're reading and who sadly discounts the entirety of a text for not readily providing translations, be warned that you likely would do well to skip Tropicália (even though you'd ultimately be short changing yourself).
The text delves into a bevy of themes relating to family: generational curses and traumas, repeated histories, destructive familial secrets, bitter rivalries, calcified hurts and subsequent grudges, estrangement, and the ties (whether frail or indestructible) that bind. There is very little that can be labeled warm and fuzzy in terms of the relationships within the Cunha clan and how they treat one another (aside from, perhaps, Lucia's with younger Marta and both with their maternal grandmother, the elder Marta). I appreciated the author's depiction of all of the characters' individual shortcomings, both as members of a familial unit and, on a fundamental level, as people. By book's end, no one emerges unscathed or remains a clear-cut shining paragon of virtue or unequivocal villain (though, I'm sure the latter is up for debate, even within my own mind). Yet this makes identifying a definitive protagonist to "root for" increasingly difficult, a seeming impediment but actually a literary feat that I applaud Rogers for—that uncomfortable push and pull proving effective in keeping the reader engaged.
Familial history repeating itself was often the result (as grievously tends to be the case) of shoddily buried secrets and a ruinous lack of transparency. Then there were inadvertent instances of history repeated that some would chock up to "coincidence": matriarch Marta and João both having dead younger brothers they were close to named Francisco (58, 100); the separate suicides of João's mother (98) and ; Daniel stealing from ; Lucia affectionately referring to Marta (younger) as "tamanduá" (162) just like her grandfather João did her mother (103); the motif of younger Marta's (55), João's (99), Daniel and Lucia's, and Nara's absent fathers (by choice or by death); death (228, 234, 242) mirroring her grandmother's (177, 178), in everything from nightly screams, right down to the terminal brain tumor diagnosis; the unforeseen reverberating consequences of matriarch Marta's affair proving to be far reaching, with Maria falling in love with Marcelo's son (who she had no idea is, in fact, Nara's half-brother, 180) and João encountering Marcelo in a bar and befriending him before the grim mutual realization of what actually links them (105-6).
All of this compounded by the power of names and even João's and matriarch Marta's own separate acknowledgement of inherent consequences of naming children after others, especially the dead (60, 63, 100): both João and matriarch Marta naming their son after their respective deceased brothers Fernando (58, 100) and that son ; Nara naming her daughter Marta, after her mother (68); Maria being named for João's dead, treacherous sister (63, 100); Maria naming her daughter Lucia for her virulent maternal grandmother (66). Aside from the last, for better or for worse, all become echoes of their designated namesakes.
Story-wise, there's irony in the fact that the novel's events take place in the final week of the year—a time overwhelmingly characterized as jubilant and euphoric (particularly in Rio)—in the face of the Cunha family's mourning and impending implosion. Even matriarch Marta's chapter dated "December 25" makes zero mention of Christmas or any semblance of festivity/celebration among the family.
That undercurrent of calamity is sensed by the characters themselves and illustrated in a number of ways as it reaches a fever pitch: repeated reference to Rio's stifling December heat, which serves as a pervasive backdrop that adds to the heightened sense of overall discomfort; Lucia and younger Marta witnessing the ; Danel and Lucia seeing apparitions of Cabral throughout the text that serve as harbingers; matriarch Marta influenced by her gift of sight and .
Maternal impact on who (and what) members of the next generation become is a prominent theme throughout Tropicália, but mother-daughter relationships in particular stand out: matriarch Marta relative to Maria and Nara, Maria to Lucia, Nara to younger Marta, and even Lucia's pseudo-maternal role to younger Marta. To that end, Lucia's unrelenting ache for her mother's love and attention is poignant throughout. Rogers's rendering of Maria and Lucia’s reunion at the airport following Maria's years' long absence (119) is also an electric description: the discomfort and tension so charged and palpable, that I had to go back and read it a second time. Only to find that the jumble of confusion and emotion still held in a very real and fitting way. By her own admission throughout the book, Lucia always seeks to absolve her mother's sins (both those committed against her personally as well as others) and to bestow her with an unremitting blanket of benefit of the doubt. Though this is upended (at least from a reader standpoint) by the chapter written from Maria's perspective where the reader gets firsthand affirmation of her narcissism, cold-bloodedness, and sociopathy through her flippant account of her actual transgressions. The chapter itself was chilling and too close for comfort, as I have an estranged aunt with whom Maria would undoubtedly be great pals (or enemies) on account of all they share in common.
With regard to writing and format, the shift in dates that function as chapter titles can get confusing, as they aren't chronological. The general lack of punctuation (especially lack of quotation marks for dialogue), capitalization, and, at times, outright misuse of punctuation did drive me a bit batty, as did Rogers's propensity for combining separate words for no discernible reason: "eachother," "cleanslate" (157), "riverrunning" (160), "dutystuck" (162), to name a few. To his credit, though (which may have just been my own attempt to find a silver lining of sorts), whether by design or pure coincidence, as the narrative's aura of frenzy crests, so does his unification of words, as if to mirror this escalation.
I applaud authors that make me consult a dictionary, but use of more obscure terms is a delicate balance, as it can come off as overdone and seem clunky if it doesn't blend in with the general flow or voice of a given text. And unfortunately, Rogers regularly succumbed to that with use of terms like "vituperative" (111), "stultifying" (159), "anastomosis" (160), "penury" (166), "concatenation" (166), "perfervid" (169), and "hagiographed" (175), which were more disruptive to his narrative than elevating. Also, his use of poetic license to invent words (once it became clear they weren't actual ones) likewise fell flat for me: "dunchedunche" (146), "lambuzled" (104), "emparadised" (180), "franticked" (210), "endunce" (231), "culps" (239).
One stylistic element I downright loved, though, was Rogers's incorporation of Portuguese words and phrasing into the text. Since it's not nearly as common as Spanglish (in text and otherwise), as a Brazilian Portuguese speaker I savored his use of "portinglês" (though online references to this hybrid include "Porglish," "Portuglish," "Portinglish," "Portlish," and "Pinglish," none of those resonate for me nearly as much), and I even forgave concessions he made in order to make it's use more intelligible to non-Portuguese speakers (e.g., makeing "pastels" the plural of "pastel," and "reals" the plural of "real"). His incorporation made me wish for more of it in English texts by writers of the Brasilian diaspora.
I had some issues with the book's ending, as certain included details/plot points came off as soap opera-esque in a very unnecessary way (since the narrative was already brimming with drama), especially I also didn't like that after Daniel and Lucia All of this made the book's star rating for me fall from a 4 to a 3.5 (and since Goodreads allows no half-star ratings, ultimately a 3). I did like, though, that Lucia .
Tropicália was replete with so many important lessons and truths with regard to family, familial relationships, and legacy within those congenital structures outside the scope of one's choosing. Aside from the ones already mentioned, the other sobering theme I gleaned is that the truth unfortunately doesn't always have its day. In Tropicália we see this through family histories becoming lore, often told as half truths either for the benefit of the teller or recounted from a place of ignorance due to intentionally withheld details. It underscores the implicit need for transparency in familial relationships and familial units, as truths (no matter how hurtful) ultimately inform who the individuals that comprise them become.
Mal posso esperar pela próxima obra desse autor. 💚💛
Noteworthy lines and passages:
"The beach breeze hit, bringing that fishy maresia and the gaivota smell, cooling the sweat on the back of my neck." (6)
"The despair was thick these days. People without shit to do, no job, no purpose." (7)
"Grandma used to say that a suicide would relive the moment of their death again and again until the end of time. That it was the worst hell you could imagine...Over and over and over." (7)
"Olivia was apologizing profusely and trying to dry up the mess with the weak and useless table napkins, but it was like trying to towel yourself off with a plastic bag." (9)
"No matter how close you watch, time passes without you." (34)
"The sky looked gorgeous, limpid blue melting into lavender, an impalpable array of colors swaggering as the sun dropped, and the low flying gaivotas squawked lazy toward the beach to snag a late fish lunch." (43)
"Justice was never meted out fairly, almost nobody got the end they deserved. Salvation and damnation were fickle, roving contingencies lurking dormant in every choice, and they could strike anybody, anytime." (44)
"...and I couldn't tell her how I felt, early in those days after we'd lost our son, I couldn't tell her that I felt sundered in your sight, João, fruitless under your shadow, I felt like the jaca tree that spilled fruit into our yard that our neighbor cut down in angry spite, because my salvation was slipping from my hands, your glittering nobility was dimming away, and so I saw was a craven heap..." (62-3)
"—I'm going to name her Marta, after you
and I cried for her and that unborn girl, and for all the beauty my sins had inadvertently wrought, because I had sinned, I had betrayed, I led Nara on a path darkened by the failures of my heart, because I didn't realize how my actions were like stones dropped in the Guanabara Bay
the ripples that became Maria
the ripples that became Nara
both of them widowed and their children taken from them or willfully abdicated, and it's my fault, it's my fault, my sin rooted itself thick in that Ilha soil, but its branches grew and grew in ways I couldn't anticipate, in ways I couldn't grasp." (68)
"And that was the way to win, to be plucked away to plushness, or to be valiant and powerful like the General, who could salve away a woman's squalor by pointing his finger." (96)
"It's a mistake, isn't it? Naming children after ghosts? It's like pouring poison in a sapling's soil. They grow up, if they make it that far, already withered." (100)
"Fate lurks around like a shadow. We're just laid on invisible tracks." (102)
"But my laziness and my drinking started to tighten our lives like added notches on a belt." (104)
"She sawed down the family tree and wasn't interested in some humble stump." (105)
"Soon our girls were women and your hair was graying, and it was like I missed it all. Soon they were bringing men home, where I could see myself reflected. Maria brought home that american with eyes like the devil, who looked down on our life and yelled at her, and I asked her one day, while eating pastels from a roadside stand, Does he hit you? She just looked at me. Why do you tolerate that? She laughed and said, It's how I grew up. A dagger! It's an impossible job to bring up these kids, we're so poisoned with our own sins and faults that we infect them without even realizing it." (106)
"Time is slippery." (106)
"...the short samba of my life was a wasted moment, and I'm scared of the other side..." (110)
"...and I thought, uncharitably, that my mother would take glee in my having to wait around. She liked when the world revolved around her inconsiderate clock, when she left a deep indent on the fabric of events." (116)
"She had a glazed, newly Christian look, one of glossy kindness that kind of freaked me out because maybe she really had changed, and like the freshly converted, her past sins were nothing more than a few potholes to be paved over and ignored..." (120)
"... I didn't say anything and we walked outside into the diffident day, cowering in the blistering December sun." (120)
"Sometimes I thought about how little I was prepared for such serious, significant duties, keeping a child safe, when everyone I knew personally who was thrust into that role failed and absconded." (122)
"But how can you trust a person like that? Someone who's been so beaten and battered, their perceptions all slip toward that dark abyss where chance has wronged them. It was chance. Wasn't it? The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The monstrous fact of a ruined life has its own gravity, it pulls everything in and skews it, everything becomes a reason why." (123)
"Thankfully, time had grooved a canyon through the solid rock of my mother's brutality." (130)
"And the rope would be cut that pulled at my life like an anchor." (138)
"Once you flipped that switch, once you crossed that threshold from helpless to powerful, you could never go back." (147)
"We walked as an almost contiguous mass, connected to the people in front and behind us. A big white blob bobbing back and forth moving slowly toward the ocean. The beach was like a cosmic feijoada about to be cooked by this lightning." (152)
"There was nothing natural in a name, it was like clothes, a daily habit, you wore it to hide the nothing you were born with." (160)
"I was corrupted, but everything was corrupted, everyone here wearing white, foolishly aping a forgotten candomblé ritual, turistas heading shoreward to toss their white flowers in the ocean as an offering to Iemanjá because it was a Thing to Do on a revel guide. This storm felt like a judgment. Xangô banging his axe on the world's roof. Maybe it would rupture and release another earthwiping flood, but with no Noah this time because nobody was sinless and nobody deserved to survive." (161)
"I felt like a gnawed cob of corn tossed in the trash, bare and useless..." (168)
"Her corpse was cold by daylight. We plunged her into the ground with no fanfare, no waterworks. But death was on me. Like slick poison from a dart frog. Her screams were lapidated in the caves of my ears." (178)
"Time curdles like milk." (184)
"She was conceived in a muddled month of murky margins." (184)
"Time's pyre was undefeated. We would all get burnt up and go nowhere. We didn't matter. Nothing mattered. There was a brief loud little flash where you existed. Where the world was in front of you in its scabrous discord and you played out those pointless loves, those useless losses, and you ceased. We were worth less than dust." (188)
"Relationships are all about numbers to a certain extent. How much of this did you do? How much of that?" (214)
"I got stuck with the way things were. Believing just because it was, it would be." (216)
"Life was full of failure, grief, and misery for everybody, but there were certain people hellselected for an unstoppable bartering, and I was starting to realize my mother was one of those people." (236)
For me, the novel was equal parts nostalgic (particularly, Rogers's references to/mention of: the futility of napkins at Carioca food establishments (9), pastéis (throughout), Lojas Americanas (138), rabanada (192), Bob's (193), Catete (222) and engrossing. The narrative felt very Brasilian to me, including in its use of language. So if you're a reader who gets exasperated having to look up words in another language as you're reading and who sadly discounts the entirety of a text for not readily providing translations, be warned that you likely would do well to skip Tropicália (even though you'd ultimately be short changing yourself).
The text delves into a bevy of themes relating to family: generational curses and traumas, repeated histories, destructive familial secrets, bitter rivalries, calcified hurts and subsequent grudges, estrangement, and the ties (whether frail or indestructible) that bind. There is very little that can be labeled warm and fuzzy in terms of the relationships within the Cunha clan and how they treat one another (aside from, perhaps, Lucia's with younger Marta and both with their maternal grandmother, the elder Marta). I appreciated the author's depiction of all of the characters' individual shortcomings, both as members of a familial unit and, on a fundamental level, as people. By book's end, no one emerges unscathed or remains a clear-cut shining paragon of virtue or unequivocal villain (though, I'm sure the latter is up for debate, even within my own mind). Yet this makes identifying a definitive protagonist to "root for" increasingly difficult, a seeming impediment but actually a literary feat that I applaud Rogers for—that uncomfortable push and pull proving effective in keeping the reader engaged.
Familial history repeating itself was often the result (as grievously tends to be the case) of shoddily buried secrets and a ruinous lack of transparency. Then there were inadvertent instances of history repeated that some would chock up to "coincidence": matriarch Marta and João both having dead younger brothers they were close to named Francisco (58, 100); the separate suicides of João's mother (98) and ; Daniel stealing from ; Lucia affectionately referring to Marta (younger) as "tamanduá" (162) just like her grandfather João did her mother (103); the motif of younger Marta's (55), João's (99), Daniel and Lucia's, and Nara's absent fathers (by choice or by death); death (228, 234, 242) mirroring her grandmother's (177, 178), in everything from nightly screams, right down to the terminal brain tumor diagnosis; the unforeseen reverberating consequences of matriarch Marta's affair proving to be far reaching, with Maria falling in love with Marcelo's son (who she had no idea is, in fact, Nara's half-brother, 180) and João encountering Marcelo in a bar and befriending him before the grim mutual realization of what actually links them (105-6).
All of this compounded by the power of names and even João's and matriarch Marta's own separate acknowledgement of inherent consequences of naming children after others, especially the dead (60, 63, 100): both João and matriarch Marta naming their son after their respective deceased brothers Fernando (58, 100) and that son ; Nara naming her daughter Marta, after her mother (68); Maria being named for João's dead, treacherous sister (63, 100); Maria naming her daughter Lucia for her virulent maternal grandmother (66). Aside from the last, for better or for worse, all become echoes of their designated namesakes.
Story-wise, there's irony in the fact that the novel's events take place in the final week of the year—a time overwhelmingly characterized as jubilant and euphoric (particularly in Rio)—in the face of the Cunha family's mourning and impending implosion. Even matriarch Marta's chapter dated "December 25" makes zero mention of Christmas or any semblance of festivity/celebration among the family.
That undercurrent of calamity is sensed by the characters themselves and illustrated in a number of ways as it reaches a fever pitch: repeated reference to Rio's stifling December heat, which serves as a pervasive backdrop that adds to the heightened sense of overall discomfort; Lucia and younger Marta witnessing the ; Danel and Lucia seeing apparitions of Cabral throughout the text that serve as harbingers; matriarch Marta influenced by her gift of sight and .
Maternal impact on who (and what) members of the next generation become is a prominent theme throughout Tropicália, but mother-daughter relationships in particular stand out: matriarch Marta relative to Maria and Nara, Maria to Lucia, Nara to younger Marta, and even Lucia's pseudo-maternal role to younger Marta. To that end, Lucia's unrelenting ache for her mother's love and attention is poignant throughout. Rogers's rendering of Maria and Lucia’s reunion at the airport following Maria's years' long absence (119) is also an electric description: the discomfort and tension so charged and palpable, that I had to go back and read it a second time. Only to find that the jumble of confusion and emotion still held in a very real and fitting way. By her own admission throughout the book, Lucia always seeks to absolve her mother's sins (both those committed against her personally as well as others) and to bestow her with an unremitting blanket of benefit of the doubt. Though this is upended (at least from a reader standpoint) by the chapter written from Maria's perspective where the reader gets firsthand affirmation of her narcissism, cold-bloodedness, and sociopathy through her flippant account of her actual transgressions. The chapter itself was chilling and too close for comfort, as I have an estranged aunt with whom Maria would undoubtedly be great pals (or enemies) on account of all they share in common.
With regard to writing and format, the shift in dates that function as chapter titles can get confusing, as they aren't chronological. The general lack of punctuation (especially lack of quotation marks for dialogue), capitalization, and, at times, outright misuse of punctuation did drive me a bit batty, as did Rogers's propensity for combining separate words for no discernible reason: "eachother," "cleanslate" (157), "riverrunning" (160), "dutystuck" (162), to name a few. To his credit, though (which may have just been my own attempt to find a silver lining of sorts), whether by design or pure coincidence, as the narrative's aura of frenzy crests, so does his unification of words, as if to mirror this escalation.
I applaud authors that make me consult a dictionary, but use of more obscure terms is a delicate balance, as it can come off as overdone and seem clunky if it doesn't blend in with the general flow or voice of a given text. And unfortunately, Rogers regularly succumbed to that with use of terms like "vituperative" (111), "stultifying" (159), "anastomosis" (160), "penury" (166), "concatenation" (166), "perfervid" (169), and "hagiographed" (175), which were more disruptive to his narrative than elevating. Also, his use of poetic license to invent words (once it became clear they weren't actual ones) likewise fell flat for me: "dunchedunche" (146), "lambuzled" (104), "emparadised" (180), "franticked" (210), "endunce" (231), "culps" (239).
One stylistic element I downright loved, though, was Rogers's incorporation of Portuguese words and phrasing into the text. Since it's not nearly as common as Spanglish (in text and otherwise), as a Brazilian Portuguese speaker I savored his use of "portinglês" (though online references to this hybrid include "Porglish," "Portuglish," "Portinglish," "Portlish," and "Pinglish," none of those resonate for me nearly as much), and I even forgave concessions he made in order to make it's use more intelligible to non-Portuguese speakers (e.g., makeing "pastels" the plural of "pastel," and "reals" the plural of "real"). His incorporation made me wish for more of it in English texts by writers of the Brasilian diaspora.
I had some issues with the book's ending, as certain included details/plot points came off as soap opera-esque in a very unnecessary way (since the narrative was already brimming with drama), especially I also didn't like that after Daniel and Lucia All of this made the book's star rating for me fall from a 4 to a 3.5 (and since Goodreads allows no half-star ratings, ultimately a 3). I did like, though, that Lucia .
Tropicália was replete with so many important lessons and truths with regard to family, familial relationships, and legacy within those congenital structures outside the scope of one's choosing. Aside from the ones already mentioned, the other sobering theme I gleaned is that the truth unfortunately doesn't always have its day. In Tropicália we see this through family histories becoming lore, often told as half truths either for the benefit of the teller or recounted from a place of ignorance due to intentionally withheld details. It underscores the implicit need for transparency in familial relationships and familial units, as truths (no matter how hurtful) ultimately inform who the individuals that comprise them become.
Mal posso esperar pela próxima obra desse autor. 💚💛
Noteworthy lines and passages:
"The beach breeze hit, bringing that fishy maresia and the gaivota smell, cooling the sweat on the back of my neck." (6)
"The despair was thick these days. People without shit to do, no job, no purpose." (7)
"Grandma used to say that a suicide would relive the moment of their death again and again until the end of time. That it was the worst hell you could imagine...Over and over and over." (7)
"Olivia was apologizing profusely and trying to dry up the mess with the weak and useless table napkins, but it was like trying to towel yourself off with a plastic bag." (9)
"No matter how close you watch, time passes without you." (34)
"The sky looked gorgeous, limpid blue melting into lavender, an impalpable array of colors swaggering as the sun dropped, and the low flying gaivotas squawked lazy toward the beach to snag a late fish lunch." (43)
"Justice was never meted out fairly, almost nobody got the end they deserved. Salvation and damnation were fickle, roving contingencies lurking dormant in every choice, and they could strike anybody, anytime." (44)
"...and I couldn't tell her how I felt, early in those days after we'd lost our son, I couldn't tell her that I felt sundered in your sight, João, fruitless under your shadow, I felt like the jaca tree that spilled fruit into our yard that our neighbor cut down in angry spite, because my salvation was slipping from my hands, your glittering nobility was dimming away, and so I saw was a craven heap..." (62-3)
"—I'm going to name her Marta, after you
and I cried for her and that unborn girl, and for all the beauty my sins had inadvertently wrought, because I had sinned, I had betrayed, I led Nara on a path darkened by the failures of my heart, because I didn't realize how my actions were like stones dropped in the Guanabara Bay
the ripples that became Maria
the ripples that became Nara
both of them widowed and their children taken from them or willfully abdicated, and it's my fault, it's my fault, my sin rooted itself thick in that Ilha soil, but its branches grew and grew in ways I couldn't anticipate, in ways I couldn't grasp." (68)
"And that was the way to win, to be plucked away to plushness, or to be valiant and powerful like the General, who could salve away a woman's squalor by pointing his finger." (96)
"It's a mistake, isn't it? Naming children after ghosts? It's like pouring poison in a sapling's soil. They grow up, if they make it that far, already withered." (100)
"Fate lurks around like a shadow. We're just laid on invisible tracks." (102)
"But my laziness and my drinking started to tighten our lives like added notches on a belt." (104)
"She sawed down the family tree and wasn't interested in some humble stump." (105)
"Soon our girls were women and your hair was graying, and it was like I missed it all. Soon they were bringing men home, where I could see myself reflected. Maria brought home that american with eyes like the devil, who looked down on our life and yelled at her, and I asked her one day, while eating pastels from a roadside stand, Does he hit you? She just looked at me. Why do you tolerate that? She laughed and said, It's how I grew up. A dagger! It's an impossible job to bring up these kids, we're so poisoned with our own sins and faults that we infect them without even realizing it." (106)
"Time is slippery." (106)
"...the short samba of my life was a wasted moment, and I'm scared of the other side..." (110)
"...and I thought, uncharitably, that my mother would take glee in my having to wait around. She liked when the world revolved around her inconsiderate clock, when she left a deep indent on the fabric of events." (116)
"She had a glazed, newly Christian look, one of glossy kindness that kind of freaked me out because maybe she really had changed, and like the freshly converted, her past sins were nothing more than a few potholes to be paved over and ignored..." (120)
"... I didn't say anything and we walked outside into the diffident day, cowering in the blistering December sun." (120)
"Sometimes I thought about how little I was prepared for such serious, significant duties, keeping a child safe, when everyone I knew personally who was thrust into that role failed and absconded." (122)
"But how can you trust a person like that? Someone who's been so beaten and battered, their perceptions all slip toward that dark abyss where chance has wronged them. It was chance. Wasn't it? The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The monstrous fact of a ruined life has its own gravity, it pulls everything in and skews it, everything becomes a reason why." (123)
"Thankfully, time had grooved a canyon through the solid rock of my mother's brutality." (130)
"And the rope would be cut that pulled at my life like an anchor." (138)
"Once you flipped that switch, once you crossed that threshold from helpless to powerful, you could never go back." (147)
"We walked as an almost contiguous mass, connected to the people in front and behind us. A big white blob bobbing back and forth moving slowly toward the ocean. The beach was like a cosmic feijoada about to be cooked by this lightning." (152)
"There was nothing natural in a name, it was like clothes, a daily habit, you wore it to hide the nothing you were born with." (160)
"I was corrupted, but everything was corrupted, everyone here wearing white, foolishly aping a forgotten candomblé ritual, turistas heading shoreward to toss their white flowers in the ocean as an offering to Iemanjá because it was a Thing to Do on a revel guide. This storm felt like a judgment. Xangô banging his axe on the world's roof. Maybe it would rupture and release another earthwiping flood, but with no Noah this time because nobody was sinless and nobody deserved to survive." (161)
"I felt like a gnawed cob of corn tossed in the trash, bare and useless..." (168)
"Her corpse was cold by daylight. We plunged her into the ground with no fanfare, no waterworks. But death was on me. Like slick poison from a dart frog. Her screams were lapidated in the caves of my ears." (178)
"Time curdles like milk." (184)
"She was conceived in a muddled month of murky margins." (184)
"Time's pyre was undefeated. We would all get burnt up and go nowhere. We didn't matter. Nothing mattered. There was a brief loud little flash where you existed. Where the world was in front of you in its scabrous discord and you played out those pointless loves, those useless losses, and you ceased. We were worth less than dust." (188)
"Relationships are all about numbers to a certain extent. How much of this did you do? How much of that?" (214)
"I got stuck with the way things were. Believing just because it was, it would be." (216)
"Life was full of failure, grief, and misery for everybody, but there were certain people hellselected for an unstoppable bartering, and I was starting to realize my mother was one of those people." (236)
August 15, 2023
Life was full of failure, grief, and misery for everybody, but there certain people hellselected for an unstoppable battering."
Tropicália by Harold Rogers was a stunning debut. The writing is poetic and cuts so deep at times. The story is raw and gut wrenching. Rogers tightens the grip on the reader with a tension that can only be cut with a knife. This debut is stunning and I am so excited to read more of Roger's work in the future.
This story is told in multiple perspectives, all from different members of the same family. There is so much unresolved and unspoken grief and trauma and it fills the reader with so much angst as all the back stories unfold. In the backdrop is the immense poverty in Brazil caused by tourism, political unrest and the colorism that still divides Rio de Janeiro. The cast of characters are multidimensional, flawed and human in every sense of the word. Rogers portrayal does an amazing job of blurring the lines of 'good' and 'bad'.
Rogers' explores poverty, lack of choices, unfulfillment, alcoholism, unrequited love, fatherlessness, lust, unwanted pregnancy, abandonment, biracial identity, revenge and generational curses. After reading this one I'm left reflecting on the power of forgiveness, the human ability to change, the loss of regret and how sad life would be if we were judged by the worst moments of our lives without opportunity for redemption. It reminds how messy families can be but also how love brings about hope and how living in the past keeps us trapped in vicious cycles. Love can cause the deepest of wounds but also be restorative. It can blind you to make bad decisions but it also teaches you how to give grace. I can sum this one up by saying people find ways to numb the pain that lives in the heart and storytellers in families sift through all the broken glass and make a beautiful mosaic for the future generations to gaze at. This book was a beautiful disaster.
If you love generational stories that don't always have a happy ending, you'll totally be captivated by this one. If you loved The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina, then this one will make a nice pairing. Thanks to @atriabooks for sending me a gifted copy.
Tropicália by Harold Rogers was a stunning debut. The writing is poetic and cuts so deep at times. The story is raw and gut wrenching. Rogers tightens the grip on the reader with a tension that can only be cut with a knife. This debut is stunning and I am so excited to read more of Roger's work in the future.
This story is told in multiple perspectives, all from different members of the same family. There is so much unresolved and unspoken grief and trauma and it fills the reader with so much angst as all the back stories unfold. In the backdrop is the immense poverty in Brazil caused by tourism, political unrest and the colorism that still divides Rio de Janeiro. The cast of characters are multidimensional, flawed and human in every sense of the word. Rogers portrayal does an amazing job of blurring the lines of 'good' and 'bad'.
Rogers' explores poverty, lack of choices, unfulfillment, alcoholism, unrequited love, fatherlessness, lust, unwanted pregnancy, abandonment, biracial identity, revenge and generational curses. After reading this one I'm left reflecting on the power of forgiveness, the human ability to change, the loss of regret and how sad life would be if we were judged by the worst moments of our lives without opportunity for redemption. It reminds how messy families can be but also how love brings about hope and how living in the past keeps us trapped in vicious cycles. Love can cause the deepest of wounds but also be restorative. It can blind you to make bad decisions but it also teaches you how to give grace. I can sum this one up by saying people find ways to numb the pain that lives in the heart and storytellers in families sift through all the broken glass and make a beautiful mosaic for the future generations to gaze at. This book was a beautiful disaster.
If you love generational stories that don't always have a happy ending, you'll totally be captivated by this one. If you loved The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina, then this one will make a nice pairing. Thanks to @atriabooks for sending me a gifted copy.
November 16, 2023
I'm more than a little biased - I spent around 6 months in Rio many moons ago, so the references to places, the interspersed Brazilian phrases, and the stark contrast between rich and poor, were all too familiar, and nostalgic, in a beautiful way.
Add to this, the fact that I took the book away as holiday reading, where I could spend long stretches reading in silence, and you have a combination of circumstances which maybe suggest the book couldn't fail. I loved it!
All the familiarity I found in the book led me to believe it was written especially for me, but it leaves a warm, fuzzy feeling to think that there is a large group of others, with experiences just like me - living in a western country (in my case, the UK), but having spent a time in a most wonderful place, Rio de Janeiro - it feels deeply personal, but must encapsulate the experience (at least partly) of anyone who has spent any amount of time there.
If any of the above apply to you, I would urge you to read it. Aside from bringing me back to a place where I spent such a beautiful time, the story itself is enthralling - in turns light and breezy, then suddenly deeply personal, and heavy - much like the weather, the sea, the people I met, and also, perhaps especially, the feeling in the air, contrasting the optimism tourism brings, with the very real threat of chaos and destruction.
I'm almost certain that by the end of the book, the reader will feel deeply nostalgic for their own younger years, their family ties, and what became of their lives, while also perhaps making you question what will become of your future.
Add to this, the fact that I took the book away as holiday reading, where I could spend long stretches reading in silence, and you have a combination of circumstances which maybe suggest the book couldn't fail. I loved it!
All the familiarity I found in the book led me to believe it was written especially for me, but it leaves a warm, fuzzy feeling to think that there is a large group of others, with experiences just like me - living in a western country (in my case, the UK), but having spent a time in a most wonderful place, Rio de Janeiro - it feels deeply personal, but must encapsulate the experience (at least partly) of anyone who has spent any amount of time there.
If any of the above apply to you, I would urge you to read it. Aside from bringing me back to a place where I spent such a beautiful time, the story itself is enthralling - in turns light and breezy, then suddenly deeply personal, and heavy - much like the weather, the sea, the people I met, and also, perhaps especially, the feeling in the air, contrasting the optimism tourism brings, with the very real threat of chaos and destruction.
I'm almost certain that by the end of the book, the reader will feel deeply nostalgic for their own younger years, their family ties, and what became of their lives, while also perhaps making you question what will become of your future.
February 10, 2024
One of the more confusing books I have ever read. I won this through a Goodreads giveaway last year, and it has sat on my shelf, waiting to be read. The story is a chaotic retelling of the life of a Brazilian family. The plot and the characters were well devised and I felt like the story was captivating. That being said, I could barely stand the writing style. If I didn't feel the need to finish every book I start, I would have never finished this. It jumps between narrators each chapter (which is needed for the story to be told), but it's up to you to figure out who is the one speaking. There's no quotation marks or indications of who is speaking in conversations, so once again, you have to guess who is speaking. I spent more time trying to keep track of who is telling me what than enjoying the story. I also received an advance reader's edition, so this may have been fixed in the final publication, but there were so many typos, in particular random spacings in the middle of words and awkward capitalizations/missing capitalizations, that really, really bothered me as I read. Overall, Im glad I finally got it off my to read shelf, but I would not reread (and I'm a big rereader) and probably would not purchase for/recommend to others.
December 19, 2023
Total page turner! I was very much compelled to keep reading this debut novel. I loved the way the author made allusions to some of the best of Brazilian literature and cinema (including a very compelling paragraph long synopsis of arguably the greatest Brazilian novel of the 20th century) within an almost telenovela-esque narrative. I also loved the way the author employed portinglês. This was the first novel I’ve read that did so much of that, and as somebody who speaks both languages I found it very compelling.
I did feel like some of the key plot twists could be parsed out fairly early on, and the sheer quantity of misfortune that befell these characters could be a lot at times. But overall it’s a very compelling read and I hope to see more of these Brazilian-American narratives in the future. We need more of that voice.
I did feel like some of the key plot twists could be parsed out fairly early on, and the sheer quantity of misfortune that befell these characters could be a lot at times. But overall it’s a very compelling read and I hope to see more of these Brazilian-American narratives in the future. We need more of that voice.
June 29, 2023
This was a good reads giveaway win.
I normally wouldn’t have selected a book like this, but the plot/family story was actually really good! A solid 4/5. My main issue was with how the book was written. I am not sure if it’s an ARC thing or if the final book is going to be like this, but it was very hard to get into and keep up with with the not clearly defined switches in POVs and the lack of quotation marks when characters were having conversations. There was also a ton of Portuguese with no glossary included, so a bit of research if you wanted to know everything that was being said!
I normally wouldn’t have selected a book like this, but the plot/family story was actually really good! A solid 4/5. My main issue was with how the book was written. I am not sure if it’s an ARC thing or if the final book is going to be like this, but it was very hard to get into and keep up with with the not clearly defined switches in POVs and the lack of quotation marks when characters were having conversations. There was also a ton of Portuguese with no glossary included, so a bit of research if you wanted to know everything that was being said!
May 22, 2023
#goodreadsgiveaways I was so thrilled to have the luck of the draw to get this book in the sweepstakes. A brutal and beautiful multiperspective family drama told with vivid detail and impressive voice. The writing glows, sweats, and resonates as it skips between characters and every chapter is distinct. All of the women were complicated and well drawn (moreso than Daniel, which meant it took me a brief bit to really commit to this story, but once I was in, I was in.)
February 21, 2025
Anyone who has a family has, at least in part, a crazy family. My mom won’t throw out food until well after it grows fuzz. My father has become a stoner with an attendant media diet saturated with Guy Fieri. Our arguments about the right way to live generate residual beef. And though I’m fortunate that these are small problems, family dramas of any magnitude prickle the relatives involved with commensurate levels of disdain. Familial drama’s elevated emotional register engenders a perverse fascination from any spectators who glimpse our niche insanities.
This is why the fraught family dynamic that propels Tropicália seizes attention like a multi-car pileup. Though this pugilistic debut novel from precocious Brazilian American author Harold Rogers radiates domestic madness suffused with secrets, betrayal, and abandonment, its core vibrates at a frequency peculiar to troubled families: reluctant love.
Tropicália opens two days before New Year’s Eve in a sweltering Rio de Janeiro plagued by economic desperation and a heavily armed police presence to keep everyone in check. Days earlier, American tourists were murdered at the Christ statue, a high profile incident that “sent out a signal to these outsiders that their mere presence poked the open wound of these disparities.”
The novel’s title refers to a social movement and musical genre catalyzed during Brazil’s tumultuous dictatorial late 1960s. A tropical paradise police state. Forerunning contemporary Brazilian culture, Tropicália music often fused African and indigenous rhythms to lighter melanin elements of psychedelic rock imported from Anglo-leaning locales.
Tropicália the book parallels the sonic variety of this musical style in each of its first-person chapters. Following the alcoholic Cunha family patriarch João’s death, grandson Daniel navigates the more acute grief of getting dumped by his ex-girlfriend by reeling in a visiting American girl at the beach. Daniel’s sister, Lucia, toils at a restaurant and narrates chapters with a lexical range informed by her literary sensibility. (She had published a piece in a magazine run by Daniel’s ex.) Outside of work, Lucia looks after Marta, her younger cousin, whose mother, Nara – Lucia and Daniel’s aunt – is in prison.
Rogers’s novel unknots the intergenerational tangle agitated by Daniel and his sister Lucia’s mother, Maria. Maria sought salvation from an upbringing barbed by poverty and malaise through the hollow promises of American men. She had since escaped to the states with a new American husband, a choice her family in Rio condemned.
But after Grandpa João dies, the complicated family history bubbles to a boil when Maria revisits Rio to purportedly mourn her father’s passing. Despite the risk of inflaming family tensions during this tenuous time, Lucia brings Maria and her latest husband to Grandma Marta’s apartment on New Year’s Eve, a decision whose capital consequences further disintegrate the broken Cunha family.
The shift between each character’s first-person voices colors the book with linguistic parity. Daniel Cunha speaks like a Carioca bro who peppers his narration with Brazilian Portuguese. Readers with non-existent Portuguese and limited knowledge of Brazilian culture can embrace not understanding certain words, which flavor the prose with a novelty akin to abroad travel.
The destination city of Rio is the magnifying glass under which Tropicália’s characters are cooked like ants. And Rogers’s stylistic accordance with Brazilian grammar, in English, reinforces the book’s spotlight on the city: city names are capitalized while proper nouns of languages and countries are written lowercase. The city in Rogers’s novel supersedes parameters of language and nationality as a conduit of community.
For such a melodic, naturalist book, where certain events and revelations may at times present as coincidental, the flashbacks woven through the chapters contextualize characters' long-running gripes against each other. Yearslong resentments intimate a sense of order that renders the novel’s tragicomic plot as “happenstances greatly agglomerated.”
Cataloging the details of the Cunha family’s intergenerational grievances risks disorienting readers lucky enough to suffer less crazy family situations. But to appreciate the volume and complexity of the book’s familial turmoil only stokes the deviant empathy characteristic of carefully unhinged fiction. Prepare to surface from the novel’s immersive velocity grateful that this glimpse of chaos is some other family’s problem.
This is why the fraught family dynamic that propels Tropicália seizes attention like a multi-car pileup. Though this pugilistic debut novel from precocious Brazilian American author Harold Rogers radiates domestic madness suffused with secrets, betrayal, and abandonment, its core vibrates at a frequency peculiar to troubled families: reluctant love.
Tropicália opens two days before New Year’s Eve in a sweltering Rio de Janeiro plagued by economic desperation and a heavily armed police presence to keep everyone in check. Days earlier, American tourists were murdered at the Christ statue, a high profile incident that “sent out a signal to these outsiders that their mere presence poked the open wound of these disparities.”
The novel’s title refers to a social movement and musical genre catalyzed during Brazil’s tumultuous dictatorial late 1960s. A tropical paradise police state. Forerunning contemporary Brazilian culture, Tropicália music often fused African and indigenous rhythms to lighter melanin elements of psychedelic rock imported from Anglo-leaning locales.
Tropicália the book parallels the sonic variety of this musical style in each of its first-person chapters. Following the alcoholic Cunha family patriarch João’s death, grandson Daniel navigates the more acute grief of getting dumped by his ex-girlfriend by reeling in a visiting American girl at the beach. Daniel’s sister, Lucia, toils at a restaurant and narrates chapters with a lexical range informed by her literary sensibility. (She had published a piece in a magazine run by Daniel’s ex.) Outside of work, Lucia looks after Marta, her younger cousin, whose mother, Nara – Lucia and Daniel’s aunt – is in prison.
Rogers’s novel unknots the intergenerational tangle agitated by Daniel and his sister Lucia’s mother, Maria. Maria sought salvation from an upbringing barbed by poverty and malaise through the hollow promises of American men. She had since escaped to the states with a new American husband, a choice her family in Rio condemned.
But after Grandpa João dies, the complicated family history bubbles to a boil when Maria revisits Rio to purportedly mourn her father’s passing. Despite the risk of inflaming family tensions during this tenuous time, Lucia brings Maria and her latest husband to Grandma Marta’s apartment on New Year’s Eve, a decision whose capital consequences further disintegrate the broken Cunha family.
The shift between each character’s first-person voices colors the book with linguistic parity. Daniel Cunha speaks like a Carioca bro who peppers his narration with Brazilian Portuguese. Readers with non-existent Portuguese and limited knowledge of Brazilian culture can embrace not understanding certain words, which flavor the prose with a novelty akin to abroad travel.
The destination city of Rio is the magnifying glass under which Tropicália’s characters are cooked like ants. And Rogers’s stylistic accordance with Brazilian grammar, in English, reinforces the book’s spotlight on the city: city names are capitalized while proper nouns of languages and countries are written lowercase. The city in Rogers’s novel supersedes parameters of language and nationality as a conduit of community.
For such a melodic, naturalist book, where certain events and revelations may at times present as coincidental, the flashbacks woven through the chapters contextualize characters' long-running gripes against each other. Yearslong resentments intimate a sense of order that renders the novel’s tragicomic plot as “happenstances greatly agglomerated.”
Cataloging the details of the Cunha family’s intergenerational grievances risks disorienting readers lucky enough to suffer less crazy family situations. But to appreciate the volume and complexity of the book’s familial turmoil only stokes the deviant empathy characteristic of carefully unhinged fiction. Prepare to surface from the novel’s immersive velocity grateful that this glimpse of chaos is some other family’s problem.
April 21, 2024
4.5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫
I was totally blown away by this book. I didn't have any sort of expectations going in. Harold Rogers completely immerses the reader into this world of chaos, misadventure, desires of connection and love, failure, and more. The circumstances of life for this family, and for many struggling to survive in poverty, just keep beating them down and they try to rise above and out of the cycles of abuse in their family, but the pull of the familiar and the known is a tough one to break.
The characters are deeply flawed. I think the struggle between despair and hope, poverty and attempting to rise out, to stay safe in a space that is so infused with crime is a tough one. They all make many poor decisions, often out of fear or desperation.
Loved the way he combined words such as "eachother" to create his own style and sense of the character's world and mindset. Loved the way he created new words too, such as "to endunce me."the word need in me just adored it. It really added a lot to the sensibility of the prose. It felt almost Joycian to me.
I think my high school English teachers would have enjoyed putting this one on the list next to House on Mango Street for us. It's raw and real, perfect for the inner city kids trying to survive and rise out of the difficulties of poverty, to make a better life for themselves, to break free, the wish to be saved -- to be freed from the struggle. To attain that promisedland life.
I was totally blown away by this book. I didn't have any sort of expectations going in. Harold Rogers completely immerses the reader into this world of chaos, misadventure, desires of connection and love, failure, and more. The circumstances of life for this family, and for many struggling to survive in poverty, just keep beating them down and they try to rise above and out of the cycles of abuse in their family, but the pull of the familiar and the known is a tough one to break.
The characters are deeply flawed. I think the struggle between despair and hope, poverty and attempting to rise out, to stay safe in a space that is so infused with crime is a tough one. They all make many poor decisions, often out of fear or desperation.
Loved the way he combined words such as "eachother" to create his own style and sense of the character's world and mindset. Loved the way he created new words too, such as "to endunce me."the word need in me just adored it. It really added a lot to the sensibility of the prose. It felt almost Joycian to me.
I think my high school English teachers would have enjoyed putting this one on the list next to House on Mango Street for us. It's raw and real, perfect for the inner city kids trying to survive and rise out of the difficulties of poverty, to make a better life for themselves, to break free, the wish to be saved -- to be freed from the struggle. To attain that promisedland life.
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