The Land: A Novel from Brazil

""The land'' is the harsh, decaying, poor backland of Bahia, Brazil, to which Nelo, the prodigal son of the Baiano family, returns after having made it big in Sao Paulo. But soon after his arrival, he commmits suicide, an act that shatters the family's faith and makes each person reconsider Nelo's legendary image and the hope represented by the checks he regularly sent home. For example, the ``old man,'' who speculated and lost his crop and farm, laments his wife's newfangled ways and mourns the fact that his children must venture to the cities to succeed. The novel ends with the younger brother stepping out into a precarious urban world, full of the unanswered questions of a third-world country that is in transition. (January)