TROPICAL TRUTH: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil

The Brazilian singer/songwriter most highly regarded by the First World intelligentsia, Veloso makes his U.S. publishing debut with a rambling, extremely erudite memoir focusing on his role in the late-1960s musical happening known as Tropicália. While on the surface, Tropicália and Veloso (often compared to Bob Dylan) paralleled the U.S. counterculture of the 1960s, the author explains the multilayered context of Brazilian politics and art that made the movement unique. From the innocence of his middle-class youth in the northern state of Bahia, to his stays in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Veloso vividly re-creates his formative years, which were immersed in French new wave cinema, progressive English rock and Brazilian letters, particularly concrete poetry. "What we wanted to do would be... closer to Godard's films," he muses. "Masculin-féminin [sic], with... its adolescent sexuality—I saw it as one more moment in our daily lives in São Paulo." That Veloso is well-read is not in question—he cites everyone from Wittgenstein and Proust to Deleuze and Andrew Sullivan, while at the same time introducing non-Brazilian readers to an unknown canon of authors such as poet Augusto de Campos and essayist Oswald de Andrade. If there is any complaint with the book, it is that Veloso can get caught up in a maze of sometimes unconnected ideas that obscure his lucid descriptions of the intricacies of Brazilian music and its often equally literate stars. However, this is a must for Brazilian music fans, as well as anyone interested in how the modernist age played out in South America. (Oct.)

Forecast:Veloso's and Brazilian music's loyal fan base, as well as his highbrow appeal, will supply the book with early momentum. But it remains to be seen how well the memoir's detailed evocation of a relatively unknown (in the U.S.) cultural and aesthetic movement will translate into mass readership.