Kicking the Sky, Anthony De Sa
Kicking the Sky, Anthony De Sa
List: $24.47 | Sale: $17.13
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Kicking the Sky

Author: Anthony De Sa

Narrator: Tomas Marsh

Unabridged: 9 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/25/2014

Categories: Fiction, Crime, Coming Of Age


Synopsis

In 1977 a shoeshine boy, Emanuel Jacques, is brutally raped and murdered in Toronto. In the aftermath of the crime, twelve-year-old Antonio Rebelo and his rapscallion friends explore their Portuguese neighborhood’s dark garages and labyrinthine back alleys. The boys develop a curious relationship with a charismatic, modern-day Fagin who is master over an amoral world of hustlers, thieves, and drug dealers.

As the media unravels the truth behind the shoeshine-boy murder, Antonio starts to see his family—and his neighborhood—as never before. He becomes aware of the dashed hopes of immigrants, of the influence of faith and the role of church, and of the frightening reality that no one is really taking care of him. So intent are his parents and his neighbors on keeping the old traditions alive that they act as if they still live in a small Portuguese village, not in a big city that puts their kids in the kind of danger they would not dare imagine. 

Antonio learns about bravery and cowardice, life and death, and the heart’s capacity for both love and unrelenting hatred in this stunning coming-of-age novel set against the backdrop of a true crime that shook the city.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Karen on November 09, 2013

Canadian author Anthony De Sa's previous book, Barnacle Love is a collection of linked short stories about a Portuguese immigrant family. One of the stories, 'Shoeshine Boy' has been expanded in Kicking The Sky, his first full length novel. Set in Toronto in 1977 the real life disappearance of shoesh......more

Goodreads review by Peter on November 30, 2019

De Sa’s Kicking the Sky is a novel that revolves around the true story of the murder of a young boy in Toronto in 1977. If you lived in Toronto that summer, you will still recollect the murder of young Emanuel Jaques. To borrow a phrase from the song American Pie, this was the summer that the innoce......more

Goodreads review by Teena in Toronto on September 14, 2013

This story takes places in 1977 and revolves around the true story of Emanuel Jaques. Emanuel was a 12-year-old Portuguese shoeshine boy working on Yonge Street who was lured to an apartment above a rub-and-tug to help move some camera equipment for some quick cash. Over the span of twelve hours he......more

Goodreads review by Lolly K Dandeneau on February 05, 2014

This novel is a combination about coming of age in an immigrant family (Portuguese community in Toronto) and a young boy coping with the murder of a local 12 yr old known as the Shoeshine Boy. But more than that, it has so much going on from child prostitution, sexual confusion, drugs, biracial marr......more

Goodreads review by Leila on October 16, 2014

What a weird, lurid book. I was initially drawn the author's rendering of an immigrant community in Toronto in the late 70s, but somewhere along the way, I (and maybe the author) lost the plot... Between depicting the VERY early teen homosexual encounters, glory holes, and sexual commerce while port......more