Backlands

Set in the sparse frontier towns of northeastern Brazil, in a dry and unforgiving region roughly the size of Texas known as the Sertão, this novel draws on true events. It follows a roving band of outlaws who held sway over the area from about 1922 to 1938. They robbed the wealthy and shared with the poor, earning both loyalty and dread, and they kept their hold on the land by beating back every police force and army unit the region could assemble.

At the head of the band was Lampião, a one-eyed goat rancher who began by chasing the men who had killed his father in a lawless country, only to find himself too skilled a leader, fighter, and tactician to go home again. By 1925 he led the largest gang in Brazil. He is still remembered as a "prince" and had brains, wealth, authority, magnetism, and good fortune in abundance. What he lacked was love, until he met Maria Bonita. She had been trapped in an unhappy marriage when she left with him and became known as the Queen of the Bandits. Together they became folk heroes and the most hunted people in the country, keeping their freedom through guile.

Narrated by Maria, this first novel by Victoria Shorr conveys the thrills, dangers, and grief of this life, and Maria understands from the outset where it must end. As the federal government in Rio gears up to crush the outlaws, the story covers the final stretch of what the gang came to call their fatal month, July, along the River of Disorder, while the band tries once more to rely on the luck that has carried them so far.