The Wreckers
This time-skipping, location-jumping novel sets up a dizzying adventure of a con man’s quest to hunt down the artifacts of a distant relative. Beginning in 1950s Lisbon, the protagonist, Nuno Bárbaro de Castro, steals his ancestor Garato Bárbaro’s last will and testament from the General Staff Building of the Military History Archives. This sets off Nuno’s epic journey to search for thirteen items listed in the will as he picks up a group of wayward characters along the way.
Nuno is a mastermind fraudster with a multitude of business cards for all his various professions—editor, public relations specialist, genealogist, etc.—living off a bag filled with counterfeit US twenty-dollar bills. While there is a whimsy to Nuno’s outlandish character, the prevalent theme throughout the novel is the devastating impact of colonialization, slavery, and blood diamonds. As the son of a 19th-century masochistic phrenologist and slave trader, the artifacts Garoto lists in his will each tell their own story, much of it harrowing and gruesome. Vivid tales of slave ships sailing from Angola to Louisiana, childhood abuse, and crucifixion illustrate the savagery of colonialism.
Disparate characters gather together as Nuno travels the world, including a prisoner Nuno claims is a lost Prince of Mbala, a trawler run by a modern day she-pirate, and a young accountant stranded on an island, as he collects a pair of ill-fitting brass teeth, an ivory comb, an old lice infested medicine bag, and various other bizarre items in hopes of finding the lost kingdom of Mbala.
A highly creative and anti-swashbuckling adventure novel, it’s a fast-paced ride filled with wild, imaginative stories. The fun doesn’t dilute the critique of colonialism and its grim legacy.
