The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha: book review

The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao (2017) is set in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, in the 1940s.

This is the life of two sisters: ambitious and brilliant-minded Euridice Gusmao and the sprightly free-spirited Guida Gusmao. Euridice is married to Antenor Campelo and Guida is married to Marcos Godoy de Moraes.

Her husband laughs when Euridice says she wants to have her recipes published, so she continues to cook for her family - her daughter Cecilia and her son Afonso. But she needs a new project. Maybe dressmaking. Soon she has a dress for every day of the week. She thinks she could make dresses for her friends, but her husband got very angry about that.

Guida is a doctor’s wife living a frugal life near Botafogo far away from her sister. When her husband abandons her, she returns to her family home with her sick son Francisco (Chico), back to the comfort of Euridice. The two rebellious sisters are back together again.

The only one who seems to understand Euridice’s eccentricities is her nephew Chico. Guida, free of her husband, begins a new plan for the future. But Guida’s plan has far-reaching consequences.

This is a short dark-humoured novel about freedom.

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MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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