Spilt Milk, Chico Buarque
Spilt Milk, Chico Buarque
List: $14.99 | Sale: $10.50
Club: $7.49

Spilt Milk

Author: Chico Buarque, Alison Entrekin

Narrator: Buck Schirner

Unabridged: 4 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Published: 12/04/2012


Synopsis

From world-renowned Brazilian writer Chico Buarque comes a stylish, imaginative tale of love and loss. Spilt Milk is the story told by hundred-year-old Eulálio d’Assumpção as he lies on his deathbed, rambling to his nurses and visitors through a haze of morphine and memory. Ribald, hectoring, and occasionally delusional, Eulálio jumps through time and space, melding history and fantasy to unravel the story of his family, his heritage, and a changing nation. He begins by retracing his youth as the son of a conservative Brazilian senator and wealthy coffee exporter. Proud of his noble heritage — and eager to recount it for anyone within earshot — he recalls trips to Europe with his father, who introduces him to cocaine, sex, and a disciplinary whip that has been passed down through four generations of military men. At his father’s funeral, the teenage Eulálio falls powerfully in love with a dark-skinned choir girl named Matilde. His memory floods with exquisite detail as he recalls their furtive after-school courtship and the late-night rendezvous that led to their unlikely marriage. But the birth of their daughter marks a moment of crisis for the Assumpção line, and Eulálio struggles to understand why the love of his life seems to be withdrawing from him. In Spilt Milk, Buarque conjures an evocative portrait of a man’s life, his loves, and the chaos of memory, all set against two hundred years of Brazil’s turbulent history.

About Chico Buarque

A two-time winner of the Prêmio Jabuti, Brazil’s most prestigious literary award, Buarque has written acclaimed novels, plays, and poetry, and is a legendary figure in Latin American music. He lives in Rio de Janeiro.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jim on May 13, 2023

An old man dying in a hospital and on morphine, reminisces to himself and to the nurses about his life. So the entire book is basically a diatribe interspersed with remarks about his care and his feelings about other patients he doesn’t like. His life was on the downhill side of great ancestors who......more

Goodreads review by Sara on September 02, 2018

Um livro de conforto, agradável de se ler a beira mar e com sabor a abandono. Narra a história de um homem que relembra os seus tempos de glória. Das origens nobres da sua família que remotam à época dos imperadores. A exploração escrava. Mas principalmente evoca a um amor nostálgico. A risonha Mati......more

Goodreads review by Baba on June 05, 2020

Critically acclaimed by the literary critics as an 'outstanding novel of our time', Spilt Milk has a hundred year old man in a public hospital non-linearly recounting his life, from the Brazilian upper classes to his great grandson being a small time drug dealer and all of that in between especially......more

Goodreads review by Dennis on December 19, 2024

Chico Buarque is a multi-faceted artist, acclaimed as a playwright, but principally as a musician; his album “Caravanes” was ranked quite highly by the Brazilian edition of Rolling Stone and his lyrical and musical cleverness earned him not only recognition from the world music press but the Brazili......more

Goodreads review by Adriana on June 19, 2019

Estava com esse livro aqui desde minha última viagem ao Rio em que encontrei essa edição por cinco reais (!!!) num sebo em Copacabana, então achei a data em que Chico completa 75 anos oportuna para lê-lo. Considero Chico um dos nossos maiores poetas/compositores, mas nunca dei muita bola para seus ro......more