Of Migrants and Magic: Refugee Trades Demons of Brazil for Those of Hollywood by Daniel A. Olivas, Guest Columnist Review of Samba Dreamers by Kathleen de Azevedo El Paso Times July 2, 2006 In Kathleen de Azevedo's debut novel, the opening paragraph sets a magical but brutal tone: "Clouds brushed the wings of the airplane. José Francisco Verguerio Silva looked out the window and suddenly had the feeling of bursting through the glass, tumbling slowly through white heavenly wisps, and finally colliding with the ground, his long Brazilian name smashing into pieces and scattering. He got up to his feet, sobbing as he looked for all the parts of his name, but he had lost them. He filled out the landing card and gave his passport to the airline attendant. Now he was Joe. Joe Silva. It was all the name he had left." "Samba Dreamers" (University of Arizona Press, $17.95) is de Azevedo's tale of a Brazilian immigrant who attempts to forget a life shattered by torture and murder and begin anew in Los Angeles, circa 1975. Joe wanders out of Los Angeles International Airport, a stranger in a stranger land, and eventually settles into a passenger van owned by Hollywood Celebrity Tours. Befriended by the driver, Joe's lands his first job as a dishwasher and meets Sherri, a waitress who is as American as apple pie. After a flashback-ridden coupling that results in pregnancy, Joe marries Sherri because he believes it is the honorable thing to do. Joe improves the family income by being tapped to play a Cuban Ricky Ricardo-like character for Hollywood Celebrity Tours, showing off the homes of the stars to often bored and sometimes surly tourists. Elsewhere, Rosea Socorro Katz, the daughter of the late Brazilian bombshell Carmen Socorro (read: Carmen Miranda), is released from the women's prison and set on a course to collide with Joe's burgeoning American dream. The reason for Rosea's incarceration: She had "burned down her husband's house because of the monkey." Yes, monkey. Though too complex to explain here, suffice it to say that de Azevedo introduces wonderfully bizarre and often mythological elements that will make the reader laugh, cringe and even shed a tear. She blends the mythos of Hollywood and Brazil while populating her narrative with Amazon warriors, a boy who is part bird, conniving movie producers and many other odd and grotesque characters. Rosea is perhaps de Azevedo's most fully realized character. This large, wild and clearly unbalanced woman eventually obtains a clerical job at Hollywood Celebrity Tours, where she falls desperately and dangerously in love with Joe. Joe's longing for the Brazil of his dreams is fed by lustful trysts with Rosea in the jungles of Hollywood. Yet Joe also needs stability of the type his wife, Sherri, and twin sons could offer. But Sherri also longs for something more than a marriage based on chivalry with a man who suffers nightmares and mutters in a foreign tongue in the middle of the night. "Samba Dreamers" is a dark, fantastical and, indeed, brilliant cautionary tale for those who search out paradise without first confronting -- and defeating -- their inner demons. If Nathanael West had been Brazilian, "The Day of the Locust" would have looked a lot like "Samba Dreamers." De Azevedo is a remarkable new literary voice. Daniel A. Olivas is the author of four books including "Devil Talk: Stories" (Bilingual Press, 2004). He is the editor of "Latinos in Lotus Land: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature," forthcoming from Bilingual Press in 2007. His Web site is www.danielolivas.com. He may be reached at olivasdan@aol.com.