That Would Be Telling: A Coming of Age Novel

Vargas, Daniel Rossi

ISBN 10: 0578502348 / ISBN 13: 9780578502342

Edité par Last Ditch Press, 2019

A propos de cet article

A clean and tight copy.

N° de réf. du vendeur mon0000119734

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: That Would Be Telling: A Coming of Age Novel
• Éditeur: Last Ditch Press
• Date de parution: 2019
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0578502348
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780578502342
• Reliure: Paperback
• État de l'article: Very Good

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

That Would Be Telling is a coming of age story about friendship, love, and desire — one shaped by family grief and anger, and later by war.

The story opens in July 1960, as Portugal lurches toward a bloody independence war in Angola. Daniel Vargas is nearly eighteen. A year and a half before, church bells brought in Christmas Day and took away his mother. They took away his father too, but to an abyss of grief and non-stop work. Daniel’s own grief flares up ungoverned, and so does anger at his father.

On the way home to Portugal, Daniel stops to see his adopted French cousin Mireille. Her latest plan: Together they will figure out sex, as they did tennis. Yikes! He sucked at tennis. Their childhood friend Teresa is visiting, so the plan just simmers. All three grew up in Portugal, but Mireille moved to Bordeaux at fifteen.

Resisting her will be a roller-coaster, so Daniel finds solace with his twenty-something beach neighbor. Admittedly “not easy to bed,” she keeps letting him try. Meanwhile, he is a Good Samaritan to a sick classmate. Accidental nudity ensues, and she stops thinking him a despicable snob. All this, the Mireille roller-coaster too, amuses Teresa. Why does that depress Daniel no end?

Thousands are butchered in Angola, and the war is on. It will last fourteen years. Daniel gets this expert advice: “If you won’t cozy up to a safe posting, enlist before AK-47s replace the machetes.” Daniel confronts his fears, questions his courage and his integrity. He tells no one until it’s too late.

That Would Be Telling is also the story of a place and a time. Hemmed between Spain and the Atlantic Ocean, Portugal is just ninety miles wide and has fewer people than New York City. Yet, it once rivaled Spain for possession of the newly discovered lands.

At the time of the story, under a fascist regime for the last thirty years, the country hangs on to an ethos of longing for the past. Among the outward signs are buildings faced with decorative tiles, a 15th century custom borrowed from the Moors; sidewalks made one small white stone at a time, often using black stones for intricate designs; an old neighborhood institution, that unique fusion of café-bar and pastry shop.

The rooster on the cover is the product of a fanciful 16th century legend. It is often used as a symbol of Portugal. He is also a bit player in this story.