Heliopolis

Adam Langer

I'm suspicious of novels that are praised as laugh-out-loud, impossible-to-put-down page-turners. I don't often laugh out loud while reading; I get bored easily with purportedly page-turning thrillers, and with two kids in the house and deadlines to meet, I can put down nearly any book. But Heliopolis, James Scudamore's exhilarating satire of class conflict in Sao Paulo, Brazil, merits just about every hackneyed plaudit one can hurl at it. It's a book that I found myself very reluctant to put down, even when I had to.
—The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

Today's São Paulo, where great wealth and grinding poverty exist side by side, is a star player in Scudamore's absorbing second novel (after The Amnesia Clinic). Born in the slums of São Paulo, Ludo dos Santos lucked out when, as a child, the extravagantly wealthy Zé Fischer Carnicelli took in Ludo and his mother, giving her a job as domestic help and him a safe place to live. Now grown, Ludo is having trouble finding his way: the company he works for profits by exploiting those unlucky enough to live in the slums; his boss is perpetually disappointed in him (late night partying has Ludo snoozing on the bathroom floor at work); and he's having sex with Melissa, a married woman who happens to be his adoptive sister. But what begins as an innocuous run-in with a street kid launches Ludo on an existential quest that could have mortal implications. Issues of race and class spark a wily, layered, and savvy narrative ("money makes you whiter," Ludo says) where nods to Great Expectations coexist nicely with Scudamore's morbid humor and blistering social commentary. (Nov.)

Library Journal

This is a brave and captivating novel about a potentially dry, academic subject—economic inequality—which Scudamore (The Amnesia Clinic) brings vividly to life. The setting is São Paulo, Brazil, where slums and sprawling shantytowns abut glittering office towers and extraordinary affluence. Drug lords run the ghetto and provide social services, security, and their own form of justice. The wealthy fly above the fray in their helicopters, landing in their gated and heavily fortified communities, seldom acknowledging the poverty below. Protagonist Ludo is a conflicted character who bridges these two worlds; as a young boy, he was rescued from the slums and adopted by a rich businessman and his wife. VERDICT This ambitious novel is built around a vital question—How should we live in the face of such devastating poverty?—and it is to Scudamore's credit that he both asks it and then engages it with great sympathy, courage, and intelligence. The result is a richly detailed, beautifully executed work that should move readers deeply.—Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT