Leaving Pico
Poet Gaspar (A Field Guide to the Heavens) offers a quaint time capsule from the Portuguese fishing community in 1950s Provincetown on Cape Cod. The story, wistfully recalling Old World details and tenacious with nostalgia, is narrated by young Joachim Carvalho, an illegitimate child and the only young person in a houseful of tenuously connected Picos (Portuguese immigrants from the Azores, as opposed to Lisbons, from the mainland). Joachim is isolated, relishing the attention he receives from his irascible grandfather John Joseph when grandpa comes home from cavorting and courting "summer people." Inspired by his aunt Theophila's eccentric and creative Catholicism, Joachim prays for a father, and Carmine appears to woo Joachim's mother Rose, but he winds up taking her away from Joachim, the family and the town. Joachim finds a secret hideaway where he spends nights with John Joseph, who tells installments of a magical story: the adventures of their ancestor, explorer Francisco Carvalho, who may have discovered America. As with the rest of the novel, grandpa's tales are full of meticulous details and huge leaps of faith. The community comes to life with vivid descriptions of scandalous clambakes, bad blood between the Picos and the Lisbons, hornet-sting cures, idyllic fishing trips and the double-edged havoc tourists wreak on the locals. This vibrant regional culture is one that many visitors to Provincetown can only imagine as it disappears under waves of tourism. But Gaspar's story is as much about introspective Joachim's difficult adjustments. In one intense summer his family is transformed by a crisis that changes forever Joachim's relationship with his grandpa and his mother. Glossing through the folklore and domestic scenery, readers may find Gaspar's plot to be of secondary concern in the face of this lush tale's poetic immediacy and winsome characters. (Aug.)Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.