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Set entirely on March 13, 1964, The Last Day of Innocence blends real-life situations and characters with fictional creations. Amid the tensions of João Goulart's rally at Central do Brasil, a naive young man, indifferent to the political conspiracies swirling around him, witnesses a murder and becomes the prime suspect.
The protagonist is a Brazilian orphan—a survivor of another crime—who dreams of being a journalist and searches for the big story to report. He doesn't suspect that the story will emerge in the form of his own plot, where no coincidence is truly destiny.
As army troops, conspirators, and protesters gather in downtown Rio de Janeiro, the young man, who has no memory of committing the crime, desperately searches across the city for someone who can help exonerate him. Every minute counts. And with each passing hour, he discovers that other secret crimes—in which he and his family were implicated—have been committed over the years.
The exquisite reconstruction of Brazil's political landscape plays a decisive role in the plot's outcome. The recreation of Rio de Janeiro is also exquisite. In this masterpiece of reconstructing an affective topography, the result of meticulous research, Edney Silvestre presents us with yet another demonstration of his talent in a moving book. Weaving together a first-rate fiction, revealing characters destined to remain in the reader's memory, the author is ruthless in his manipulation of memory. With fluid characters, easily identifiable bodies, and figures who hold the key to amorality, including sexuality, *The Last Day of Innocence* is an irresistible novel.
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