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 vicious mother is coming home . . .
Misfortune, however, is a Cunha family affair, and no generation is spared. Not Daniel’s grandfather João, forced to raise his siblings while still a child himself. Not João’s wife, Marta, branded as a bruxa and dragged from her home. And certainly not Maria, so envious of her younger sister’s beauty that she took revenge and fled to the States, abandoning her children.
But now Maria has returned to finally make peace, 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.
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 vicious mother is coming home . . .
Misfortune, however, is a Cunha family affair, and no generation is spared. Not Daniel’s grandfather João, forced to raise his siblings while still a child himself. Not João’s wife, Marta, branded as a bruxa and dragged from her home. And certainly not Maria, so envious of her younger sister’s beauty that she took revenge and fled to the States, abandoning her children.
But now Maria has returned to finally make peace, 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.
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Reviews
Vital and vivid . . . Tropicália is told by an ensemble of voices spanning several generations of one family, to indelible effect!
One of the most marvellous books I've read in years. Tropicália is intense, tender, and wise, and it reminds us that for each way that a family is split, it is also doubled; and that for each fury, there's a resplendent underside of love
A bacchanal of familial entanglements, as beautiful as it is brutal. This is a story of what happens when love is the midwife of destruction, trauma the cousin of redemption, and fate, the absentee mother of us all. I loved this book in all its parts, but as a whole, it left me awestruck
A formally mesmerizing, ventriloquial, intergenerational epic about the difficulties of being born into a family. Harold's prose moves muscular and propulsive, somehow managing to stay radiating light and grace no matter how cruel the subject matter
In these vibrant and hypnotizing pages, Harold has given us so much pain, grace, and love that when I finished reading I called my parents just to hear their voices
Shoots us out of a cannon from page one . . . With riveting and fearless prose and moments of tension so thick they make your spine tingle, Troplicália weaves us in and out of the Cunha family's past and one inextricably linked week in their present
A riotous search for catharsis and understanding. A powerful debut
A wild and moving saga, Tropicália bounds across generations and continents at a breakneck pace
Combining the propulsiveness of a thriller with the expansiveness of a family saga, Tropicália makes a page turner from generational trauma, mixing together genres and cultures, darkness and sweetness, much like the musical movement which gives the book its name
The moment you've been waiting for: a beach read set, partially, on a beach. But Tropicália is about so much more than its setting, which includes Sao Paulo and the shores of Copacabana Beach. It's about the Cunha family, plagued by generations of misfortune and regret, and the momentous New Year's reckoning they share as tensions flare in both their relationships and their home
Rogers debuts with the riotous and tragicomic story of a Rio de Janeiro family in turmoil over lies, infidelity, and parental abandonment . . . Rogers's plot sizzles as much as the Copacabana Beach where the party's fateful events play out. This packs a powerful punch
Brazilian American Rogers' debut novel is polyphonic, raw, and a revelation . . . The central characters are irascible and charming . . . Glimmers of love, hope, and redemption shine through Rogers', by turns, shocking and brutal, effervescent and delightful tale
For generations, the Brazilian Cunha family has been plagued by misfortune - lies, betrayal, abandonment. Siblings Daniel and Lucia are desperate to avoid their unfortunate legacy. When their capricious mother, who left her young children to find a better life for herself in the United States, offers an olive branch, intending to return home for Grandpa's funeral, the family speeds toward a clash on the sands of Rio's Copacabana Beach during a rowdy New Year's Eve party. As family secrets are exposed, this fiery debut novel explores how we can damage the people we love the most