Review by Booklist Review
In her debut novel, fiction writer and Brazilian literature translator Dantas Lobato, whose work has appeared in the New Yorker and Guernica, weaves a poignant tale of longing and connection. This touching narrative explores the bond between a mother in Brazil and her daughter studying in Vermont. Late-night conversations, illuminated by the soft glow of the daughter's blue lamp, become their lifeline as they share news, swap stories, and enjoy virtual meals and whiskey together, despite the distance. Dantas Lobato deftly portrays the mother's solitude and sense of purposelessness in contrast with the daughter's conflicted aspirations in the U.S., highlighting the emotional weight of their separation and different stages in life. Despite their physical distance, their relationship thrives on these intimate exchanges, showcasing their enduring connection and mutual support. This moving novel captivates with its exploration of love and separation, motherhood and daughterhood, and the comfort and inspiration found in maintaining a bond across the miles.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Translator Dantas Lobato debuts with a delicate story of a student's first year at college and the pain of separation between her and her mother. After the unnamed narrator arrives at her Vermont dorm room, she calls her mother in Brazil every day, regaling her with updates about the New England weather, especially the first snow. The gulf between them widens as the narrator acclimates to college, while her mother remains consumed by chronic migraines and depression. By the spring semester, the mother's health rebounds while the daughter's zest for her new environment wanes ("Snow had started to leave a tinge of lifelessness on everything, and I stopped going outside"). The novel's arc is shaped by a sudden inversion in the mother-daughter dynamic, as the narrator finds herself in need of comfort rather than obliging her mother's needs. Throughout, Dantas Lobato crafts atmospheric details of the pastoral setting and of the ersatz intimacy of video calls ("My mother stayed in the shade for a moment longer, her cheeks glowing with the blue light of her computer screen"). This shines. Agent: Sarah Bowlin, Aevitas Creative Management. (Oct.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Every night, a college student and her mother reconnect over Skype. "I'd never be able to finish telling my mother what I saw," Dantas Lobato writes near the beginning of her debut novel. "I would need as much time for telling as I would need for living." Dantas Lobato's narrator, a young girl from Brazil, has just started her first year of college in Vermont. Almost every night, she and her mother talk over Skype about their lives, their thoughts, and the mundanities of their days. This is a slim work with a narrow focus that belies the depth of its own emotion, the profundity of Dantas Lobato's observations. It is part campus novel, part coming-of-age novel, and, more than anything, it is a novel about the relationship between a mother and daughter. The mother, whose health is less than ideal, has stayed home in Brazil while the daughter ventures out into the wider world--but not without regret and guilt for the mother she's left behind. "I would give anything to live there with you," her mother tells her. "Where it snows milk, and even the people are milky, and there's milk on tap in the dining hall, and squirrels…greet you in the morning." There's a quiet lyricism to Dantas Lobato's prose, an elegance both to her sentences and to the shape of the book as a whole. It's a work you could read in an afternoon or linger over for an entire winter, finding something new to savor on each page. In 2023, Dantas Lobato won the National Book Award for her translation of Stênio Gardel'sThe Words That Remain. In her first novel, she shows that her talent as a writer is at least as tremendous as her talent as a translator. A quiet, meticulously constructed novel about a mother and a daughter. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
