The renowned Brazilian author of Turbulence presents a multigenerational saga of loss and longing that follows a dying patriarch's rambling monologue to his daughter and nurses about his youth on a wealthy plantation, his philandering father, his work as a reluctant weapons dealer and his passionate...

Centenarian Eulalio Assumpcao has reached the end of his long life. From his modest bed in a Rio public hospital, as his mind falters, he grandly recounts his past to passing nurses, his visiting daughter and the whitewashed ceiling. His eccentric stories are seemingly nothing more than the rambling...