Flesh and Bone and Water

May 8, 2017
Sauma’s confident debut centers around André, a Brazilian doctor and father who’s living in London and recently separated from his British wife. When the first of several letters from Luana, the daughter of his father’s former live-in maid, arrives from across the ocean, André thinks back to the mid-1980s, when he was a wealthy teenager living in Rio de Janeiro. On the cusp of his 18th birthday, having recently lost his mother to a tragic car accident, the younger André spends his time working at his father’s plastic surgery firm, hanging with friends, and supporting his younger brother, Thiago. When he travels with his family to the Amazonian cities of Belém and Marajó to visit family and celebrate Christmas, however, young André begins to find himself drawn to the beautiful Luana, and it isn’t long before this attraction blossoms into a secret romance. Attentive readers may anticipate the novel’s eventual twists, but Sauma’s excellent prose is thoroughly consuming, bouncing between continents and eras to create a complicated tale of class, ancestry, and love in which happy endings are difficult to find but hope remains.

April 15, 2017
A Brazilian teenager falls in love before fleeing home.Andre Cabral comes from a wealthy, privileged Rio de Janeiro family, but he's had his share of suffering. He's 16 when his mother dies, leaving him with his distant father, a plastic surgeon, and Thiago, his younger brother. Sauma's debut novel alternates between Andre's adolescence and his adulthood: now living in London, he's been left by his wife, and his teenage daughters are nearly grown. There's a mystery at the heart of this novel that only becomes clear as the narrative unwinds. As a boy, Andre was cared for by his family's live-in maid, Rita, and he grew up alongside her beautiful daughter, Luana. What happens between Andre and Luana is at the heart of this novel's mystery. Sauma's work is engaging, her descriptions of Rio evocative, and her prose frequently lyrical. Unfortunately, the key to her mystery isn't too difficult to predict, and without that element of surprise, the book isn't altogether satisfying. Andre is the only full-fledged character. Luana, though prominent both in Andre's mind and in the reader's, remains a cipher. We know her only through Andre's longings and never through her own. Andre drinks with his friends, goes to the beach, stays out all night, and returns home to find Luana hanging the laundry. What is she thinking? you'll wonder. But you'll have to go on wondering. Though attuned to the complexities of class and station, Sauma's work nevertheless feels lacking, as though some animating spark were missing. Sauma's debut is engaging, particularly in its descriptions of Rio, but ultimately disappoints.

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June 1, 2017

Sauma's first novel is told from the perspective of Andre, a doctor from a wealthy Rio de Janeiro family who lives in London. He seems to have it all--loving wife and daughter, a good job--but then he begins receiving letters from a woman from his past. The letters cause him to retreat so far into the past that his wife asks him to move out. Most of the novel is a recollection of his adolescence. When Andre was 16, his mother died in a car accident, and his father took them to the Amazon city of Belem to reconnect with the family roots. It's here he begins lusting after Luana, the daughter of the family maid. His obsession and eventual affair with her, along with his other sexual exploits, are difficult to read. Issues of class and gender are touched on, but more time is spent on Andre's teenage parties. VERDICT The cultural details in this novel may be interesting to Brazilian expats, and YA readers may relate to the coming-of-age story. However, the plot is predictable and the author's attempt to shock the reader with family secrets falls flat.--Kate Gray, Boston P.L., MA

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2017
Andre, a doctor living in London, receives a letter that pulls him immediately into his past. He's currently separated from his wife (at her request) and their teenage daughters. The letter's sender is Luana, the beautiful daughter of the maid who raised Andre back in Brazil. A year his junior, Luana worked for his family, too, and as more notes arrive, without her surname or a return address, Andre remembers events of his late teen years. His mother had just died, his father was working long days as a plastic surgeon and also at an illegal after-hours business, and his much younger brother was even lonelier than he. An implicitly out-of-bounds, fluttering crush on Luana became mutual before a wrenching turn of events sent Andre an ocean away. They lost touch completely. How and why did she find him now? This quiet, inwardly focused, fast-moving, and well-plotted debut is confidently voiced by Andre in both middle age and in vivid, lurching flashbacks. Brazilian-born Sauma depicts her and her protagonist's vast, beguiling homeland with sweltering realism.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)