Pedro and Marques Take Stock

September 25, 2023
Falero makes his English-language debut with a vivid portrayal of poverty and the drug trade in the favelas of Porto Alegre, Brazil. It’s 2009, and Pedro and Marques are both stock clerks at a branch of Fênix, a regional supermarket chain, who dream of a better life. When Pedro overhears a neighborhood kid complain about how hard it is to get weed, he decides to start dealing, and invites Marques to join him. With baby number two on the way, and profoundly moved by Pedro’s speeches about how exploited they are as employees (“You really think we work less than the dude who owns this chain?”), Marques agrees. After violence spikes between rival cartels, Pedro manages to broker a peace deal and keep the black market profitable for everyone. With business booming, Pedro spends his money extravagantly (“He had years and years of poverty to make up for,”) and has trouble getting back to the straight and narrow. Falero describes the logistics of the drug trade in minute detail, to the point of sometimes bogging down the narrative. Still, his characters’ yearnings feel palpable, as do the forces limiting their chances for success. A gritty portrait of life on the margins emerges from this well-wrought narrative. Agent: Marina Penalva, Casanovas & Lynch.

October 1, 2023
A look at poverty and ambition in Brazil. The title characters begin this vibrant and punchy novel (Falero's first to be translated into English) as stock workers at a Porto Alegre supermarket. The ball gets rolling when Pedro--the bookish smooth talker of the pair--takes "stock of the world around him" and realizes that all his problems have one solution: money. Meanwhile, Marques--more demure and gruff-- is repeatedly "zapped" by "the stinger of self-hatred" as he imagines the meager life in store for his children. He, too, resolves to escape poverty. In a long-winded and entertaining dialogue, Pedro primes Marques on socialism ("The guy was called Marques, like me?" "No. Marx, with the letter ex"), convincing him they deserve a little comfort and luxury--even if comfort and luxury mean breaking a few bourgeois laws. Everyone has "to choose between being a thug or a slave," Pedro says more than once. But once they hatch a scheme to finally move up in the world, the two friends spend the duration toeing that line, eager to attain power and dignity without betraying their values. Falero tells this story in delightful prose. Meandering sentences and wry repetitions breathe personality into the characters' inner lives, and the landscape of Porto Alegre's slums is rendered with forlorn affection. Occasional metaphors sing: Pedro is at one point "so tired he felt soft like butter"; we see one character's "sorrow brim over and touch" another. Through Falero's lovable characters, readers will meditate on violence and respectability within the death-trap of runaway capitalism. "When reality walks through the door," he warns, "there isn't a single smile that doesn't fly out the window. Head-on against the grim indignities of an unequal world, Falero's poetic novel embraces humor and empathy.

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October 27, 2023

In the bustling slums of Porto Alegre, grocery store stock clerks Pedro and Marques dream of escaping from their dead-end jobs to enjoy a better life by becoming wealthy. They hit on the idea of filling the void of marijuana dealers in their neighborhood by establishing their own weed selling business. The first part of the novel satirizes capitalistic get rich quick schemes as they and their buddies develop their enterprise with unimagined success and revel in the fruits of their lucrative venture. But then things turn nasty; they engage in a gun battle with a rival gang ending in three deaths and imprisonment for Pedro. Translator Sanches does a capable job of transferring Brazilian slang into the text, but at times the story languishes in detail overkill. VERDICT In his first work translated into English (with an intentional pun in the title not in the Portuguese version) Falero tries to instill sympathy into his characters, but readers may find the negative stigma attached to drug dealers overwhelms such efforts. The novel generally reads quickly, but the violent turnabout and unsavory atmosphere ultimately leave readers shortchanged.--Lawrence Olszewski

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