Shantytown

Set in 1960's Brazil, Shantytown is a YA novel that shows how a sixteen year-old boy, Mario, successfully engages with the challenges and temptations of Papa's world of poverty, injustice, prostitution, violence and crime, which he is determined to leave behind in pursuit of a decent way of life. A complete break with the past is not easy. If he is to discover a new identity, and grow a vision for his future life beyond their squatter's gully, Mario must overcome the shadowy religious traditions of a Papa immersed in the spirit world of macumba that help him in his life of crime, imprisonment and torture. He must convince his mother that joining Papa's criminal gang is not what is best for him. He must abandon his school chums that would have him manage a stable of prostitutes. Taking a bus out of shantytown is not easy, and Mario is constantly brought down by circumstances of his world. Yet he finds a way to break out. He was not born a hero, but discovers and grows an inner courage with the help of friends that sustain him throughout the struggle. Mario learns to be master of his own life, to look out for his family, to love his girlfriend, and stand by his community.

From the Inside Flap

Shantytown is a work of fiction. Yet it is grounded in my experience as a parish priest in a São Paulo shantytown over ten years 1963-73. A Mario did grow up in a shack located in a gully known as "hot hole". His father was a thief, and his mother was desperate to get out of that wretched place. So too was Mario, but he did not wish to become a thief. Motivated, and supported by friends, he eventually became the first person from that big shantytown to make it into college. The rest of the story is fiction, though it is based on many events I witnessed in the hard reality of shantytown, and the failure of so many others to get beyond the terrible burdens it imposed upon them. Side by side with a criminal element, there was a multitude of hardworking poor. They had come to São Paulo to escape their desperate condition in the countryside due to the introduction of modern farming technologies, and still retained the traditional perspectives of Brazil's hinterland... a strong faith, a belief in living a life of dignity, a willingness to work hard. As I "drive" around that neighborhood on Google Earth, I see paved streets, and small working class brick homes. "Hot hole" and the forest is full of new homes. However each and every one of them is secured with iron gates, and iron bars on the windows. Fear is still very much a part of living there.

From the Back Cover

Mario was barely thirteen at the time, but he followed his Papa up the hill without fear. 'Big Fella', that's what China called him, his voice accented with the guttural sounds of Pernambuco. "Your Papa is my best man, Big Fella," Mario wrote in his diary. China clapped him on the shoulder and continued. "See how much money your Papa made last night!" The boss laughed heartily, and shoved an extra roll of notes into Mario's little hand squeezing it tight with strong pudgy fingers. Big Fella. Me? Well now that's something. No one called me that before, Mario added in his diary. How Mario's Mamá laughed that evening as they counted the money. Again and again they spread the notes across the dirt floor in front of the stove. Papa stretched the crumpled notes. Mamá held the bigger ones up to the light, as if making sure she had seen the right amount. xxxx"Look at you," Mario said, gazing up at her from the ground having helped her climb up onto a thick branch of a large leafy Jequitiba to look out over the valley below. "You're so happy all the time. So strong even if you're as light as a bird. Like the spirit in this great tree." "You have no idea Mario, but when I'm with you, the whole wretched world around me disappears." "Me too," he responded, climbing up beside her. "You have the magic touch girl. How about a little more of that medicine?" "You're a rogue Mario." "But I love everything about you," he implored. "And you're a fake." "Come on Zezé. I love your long raven hair. Your rich, dark brown chocolate skin that makes you a real Brazilian morena, like Papa." "You're only a very light chocolate," she said, stroking his arm, "and your long brown hair is lighter still." "And you know why? You haven't seen her yet, but Mamá is very fair. So I turned out some place in between Papa and herself." "Branqueando," she kidded him. Whitening across the generations they called it. xxxx"Zezé's going to work every day during the summer vacation to earn money for high school, and I'm going to do some deliveries for Monteiro. " "We'll doing deliveries is alright for now Mario," Mama replied. "But it's time you started working with your Papa, and joined China's gang." Just what I expected her to say, he thought, and she never even asked about the test. Nor if I might get the scholarship to high school. "Let's wait the few days Mamá." He kept his voice low despite the seething rage. "Papa would prefer to see me continue school." "That's out of the question. We need money, not diplomas." Her blue eyes flashed as the rage she lived with every day rose up. "Here I am, taking in washing to make ends meet. Your father goes out and risks his life every night for China, but we still don't have enough money."

About the Author

I grew up in the ancient city of Kilkenny, Ireland, and like the Kilkenny cats as we are called, I have had many lives.  I became a Catholic priest, worked for ten years in Brazilian shantytowns during the period of military dictatorship, and discovered the importance of human rights.  See myYA novel, "Shantytown". I moved to New York, and taught sociological theory and the sociology of religion in the City University of New York. I edited and introduced a book of theoretical essays by my deceased friend, Emil Oestereicher, "Thinking, Feeling and Doing", wrote articles on religious developments in South America's Catholic Church, and on the resurgence of evangelical religion in the US.  I also promoted human rights with a member of Jimmy Carter's State Department, and organized the New York Forum on Brazil 1978/79.  I translated Leonardo Boff's "Jesus Christ Liberator" from Portuguese into English. In January 1992, I went on a UN Peacekeeping Mission to promote human rights in Cambodia, then South Africa, and on to Angola where I retired in 2003 as Deputy Director of the Human Rights Division after the civil war ended.  See my fictional human rights thriller, "Three Stars Above Luanda". In this period I also published humorous short stories for children and wrote human rights plays for TV, radio,  which were staged in the National Theater.  In Florida I have written and directed two plays, so the cat has had yet another life in retirement. While I always had the ability to see the funny and ironic side of things, I dedicated my life to rather serious stuff, successful or not, I have to agree with the aphorism:  hard work never killed anyone, even if it did not make much money for me.  I hope readers enjoy my work even if it has a serious side to it.  I am happily married, and have two wonderful children.  Yet another life!

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