Invisibles

Joel Burns has always believed his father is still alive. His mother Jackie has long been glad to know Gilberto is dead. When a sighting on a news report from Rio de Janeiro suggests Joel might be right, he travels to Brazil determined to find his long-lost father. Nelson, a down-and-out musician guided by the spirits of Jesus, Yemanjá and his late Aunt Zila, helps Joel retrace his childhood steps – and face up to the contrast between his rosy memories of Gilberto… (more)

Joel Burns has always believed his father is still alive. His mother Jackie has long been glad to know Gilberto is dead. When a sighting on a news report from Rio de Janeiro suggests Joel might be right, he travels to Brazil determined to find his long-lost father. Nelson, a down-and-out musician guided by the spirits of Jesus, Yemanjá and his late Aunt Zila, helps Joel retrace his childhood steps – and face up to the contrast between his rosy memories of Gilberto and his mother’s accounts of the man's cruelty. Back at home in Brighton, Joel’s trip stirs up Jackie’s own recollections of her life in Rio – from the beautiful early years of Gilberto trying to make it in the bossa nova scene, to the violent times following his arrest and imprisonment by the military authorities. Invisibles spans two cities by the sea and four decades of music, torture and romance. From the streets of Brighton to the bars of Rio, Ed Siegle weaves the rhythms of Brazil and the troubles of his characters into an absorbing story of identity, love and loss. At once familiar and foreign, this sweet, sad and compulsively readable first novel throngs with visceral memory and unbreakable ordinary heroes.