The More I Owe You
American poet Elizabeth Bishop spent much of her life running from her demons. In 1951, while recovering from a particularly bad bout with alcohol, she booked herself onto a cargo ship headed for South America – to escape New York, to see something new, to try to purge herself of her feelings of hatred and worthlessness. In Brazil she planned a brief visit with an acquaintance, the exuberant Lota de Macedo Soares, and she ended up staying seventeen years.
Michael Sledge’s novel of these two strong-willed women is at once a raw portrayal of love and artistry as well as a portrait of Brazil in times of great turmoil. The characters, and the country, are well-researched: Bishop’s poems are woven into the chapters with great delicacy and are an organic component of the book. Brazil is well-represented, too, in both its flora and fauna and its political chaos. Throughout her nearly two decades in Brazil, Bishop continued to grapple with alcohol and the need to belong; her pained efforts to produce more poems (she managed several a year, at the best of times) infuriated the over-productive Lota, who always had multiple projects and concerns going. Other people are another source of friction, and good narrative fodder. Robert Lowell, Bishop’s would-be lover, provides a worthy subplot, as does Carlos Lacerda, the Brazilian journalist-turned-revolutionary.
The women’s relationship reaches its turning point as Brazil does: the crowds outside their apartment building chanting for reform echo their inner desires for change and stability. It is in the conflict that Bishop and Soares, as well as the country, are best understood, and which makes for fascinating reading.
