Traci Brimhall, _Saudade_

SO, SUPPOSE YOU took Rita Dove's Thomas and Beulah, in which a narrative of a marriage is suggested by paired sets of lyric poems--a narrative furthermore sometimes in the shadow of the history lived by African-Americans in the middle decades of the 20th century--if, as I was saying, you took Thomas and Beulah and set it in Brazil amid some of the darker moments of that country's history, but added a couple of layers of generations, and added a little Macondo ("time passes and all the children born of the boto are named Maria")... and then, for the finishing touch, got a good dose of ayahuasca down its throat... what you would get might well be a lot like Saudade.