A mulher do padre
The Priest’s Wife
by Carol Rodrigues
Todavia Livros 2023
216 pages
14×21 cm
An ironic and affectionate account of a childhood lived in the 90’s. A journey through the moments of discovery that accompany the maturation of Lina, a girl busy observing what happens – and what doesn’t happen, and why things are as they are – around her.
We meet Lina, and the world interpreted inside her head, during her early years spent in England with her parents. She introduces us to her daily life, her favourite meals, her games, and also to the spot on her mother’s forehead – «a lizard is growing inside her» she says, and it makes her always sad, and sometimes violent.
She tells us abour her neighbours Harry and William (sounds familiar?), who invite her to unusual games, her love for the Backstreet Boys and her fear of mad cow, just two of the many references to the 1990s present in the narrative.
Back in Brazil with her family, Lina experiences remarkable moments in the country’s history – such as the demonstrations of the “cara-pintadas” during the Collor era –, always with the curious look of someone who is still growing up and trying to understand the world.
She dreams of skating like the attendants at a supermarket chain, hates ballet classes and is learning to cope, groping, with a mother of fickle humour and a father who always seems a little lost.
In the brief chapters of this book, written in a lean and inventive language, we walk with Lina and her unusual thoughts through adolescence, her first romantic interests, school exams, an international trip, and that sense of dislocation and confusion, of discovery and wonder that accompanies this formative period.
The priest’s wife is a nostalgia-spiced delicacy for those who grew up in the 1990s, with inescapable references and memories (as delightful as they are embarrassing) that can be shared among many of us. In this scenario, we witness Lina’s moments
of doubt, tenderness and violence, and, with doses of humour and horror, we are reminded of how childhood, with its not knowing and not understanding, can be a time of great loneliness and doubt, but always full of life.
Here you can download an English BOOK PROFILE
Rights available: World
Represented in collaboration with MTS Agência
Carol Rodrigues was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1985 and lives in São Paulo. With her debut book, Sem vista para o mar (Edith, 2014), she won the Jabuti and Clarice Lispector awards from the National Library. Her second book, the novel O melindre nos dentes da besta (7Letras, 2019), was a fnalist of the São Paulo Literature Prize and the Jabuti Prize. She holds a master’s degree in Performance Studies from the University of Amsterdam and works as a screenwriter, curator and teacher.
* For any info about Carol Rodrigues’ other publications please contact us at info@redondobooks.com *
