Publisher's Synopsis
"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 sch
