Customer Reviews

Samba Dreamers (Camino del Sol, A Latina and Latino Literary Series)

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Samba Dreamers is compelling, imaginative, and fabulous reading! Brazil, the idea, finds passionate range in this fast-paced story told by a deft spinner of fantastic tales about love and dreams in Hollywood. De Azevedo's intelligence and humor are both in evidence as she takes on stereotypes about everything from Hollywood success to the Carmen Miranda biography to Amazonian lore, and brings us a wild slate of engaging characters.

Birdboy is the misfit hybrid whose bird-plus-boy body graphically illustrates all the ways that bodies and selves don't always fit very well into what life has in store. Rosea Socorro Katz is a knockout character, so believable and so larger-than-life at the same time, a contemporary Amazon in not-exactly-comfortable clothing, the wanna-be lover with the heart of gold and killer instincts. Joe Silva is a Brazilian transplant who won't try to fill stereotypical Latin lover shoes, but he does wear a Ricky Ricardo costume for work, and de Azevedo draws the tensions of his coexisting Brazilian/US identities with sympathy and humor.

So many things in this novel are occasions for laughter: The naming of the twins (Keffy and Jeffy) after tv show puppets because the names sound "American." The Hollywood homes tour business and its lies and gullible tourists, probably closer to truths than fiction. The funny but perfectly imagined artifices that bring all the novel's characters into relationship.

And so many things in the novel are inspired: the chapter-heading glosses of anthropological journals about Amazons and cannibalism; the dark complexities of Joe's relationship with Brazil; De Azevedo's smiling and insightful exploration into the challenges of being alive for all her characters, for all of us.

Highly recommended reading!

"Samba Dreamers" is a dark, fantastical and, indeed, brilliant cautionary tale for those who search out paradise without first confronting -- and defeating -- their inner demons. If Nathanael West had been Brazilian, "The Day of the Locust" would have looked a lot like "Samba Dreamers." De Azevedo is a remarkable new literary voice. [The full review first appeared in the El Paso Times.]

Samba Dreamers is an amazing book, a sociological tour de force, and a fun read. Two young Brazilians in Hollywood are in the midst of a torrid illicit affair. They break all the rules including big time felony. He's a fugitive from Brazil's dictatorship of the 70's and she's the daughter of famed Brazilian movie star Carmen Socorro (read Carmen Miranda). Caught up, used and misused by the Hollywood power structure, they long for the sensuous rhythms and relaxed tropical warmth of Brazil. Ms. De Azevedo deftly balances a keen and adventurous insight into Hollywood with a sincere sympathy for her native Brazilian culture. This book is bound to become a great Hollywood exposé movie in the tradition of such classics as "Sunset Boulevard" and "Day of the Locust". For now it's a must read!

"Jose Francisco Verguerio Silva. . .[saw] his long Brazilian name smashing into pieces and scattering . . . He gave his passport to the airline attendant. Now he was Joe. Joe Silva. It was all the name he had left."

In this new country, he feels a "space between his head and his feet." Saudade or longing for home fills him, as he progresses from working as a dishwasher to driving a bus for Celebrity Tours in Hollywood.

He marries a blonde waitress, after impregnating her in a rather joyless encounter. She gives birth to twins, whom he names Jeffy and Keffy, after cartoon characters, in his effort to become "American." He falls into an ill-fated affair with Rosea, the daughter of a deceased Brazilian movie star, and a true Amazon who embodies the characteristics of primitive women described in the writings of a purported seventeenth century Portuguese explorer.

At once an adventure story, filled with black humor reminiscent of Nathaniel West, this is also a tale of women imbued with overpowering lust, strength and madness--the Kali aspect of female power. Amazonian women virtually violate men, in the process engulfing not only their bodies but their spirits.

Joe Silva is caught in a triangle between his wife, Sherri, who is maternal but relatively sexless, and Rosea, who overflows with lust and madness, imprisoned as she is in a cold urban world.
Scenes weave back and forth in time, centering around the spirit of Rosea's mother, Carmen Socorro (think Carmen Miranda) who has been destroyed by Hollywood. Eventually Joe Silva must come to terms with his fate. "We step out onto this new land . . . this country with its giant hand pushes us further."

The novel is powerful, and its characters resonate far beyond its pages

This book is intoxicating. It is a story about a Brazilian immigrant determined to acculturate, as much as he is forced into reality. It is a jungle story, with Amazons, and ancient explorers that, like Da Vinci Code have you curious enough to google. It is a frustrating look at how we, Americans, treat outsiders even though we are all unfortunate strugglers just like Joe. At least once we were, even if it was through an old ancestor. Kathleen de Azevedo is a great writer, an old soul, with many more stories, we can only hope to tell. What taunted me most was the exchange of roles between man and woman. The exploration of the shadow, and the extreme, relentless, abandon, with which she carries out this tale. You will hate the woman so much, you will have no mercy for her soul. You will love the man to pieces, he could commit murder and you will still clap your hands in wild delight. If you are disappointed in this book, then you really do not understand the tragedy of life in a place we call home. If you are a child of an immigrant, you will see yourself and know why your identity is forever broken.