There are no heroes in Igna cio de Loyola Branda o's world, only
victims: not only of violence, but of deceit, desire, and fear. In The
Good-Bye Angel, Branda o returns to his great subject: the tyranny of
the community versus the individual, the city versus its inhabitants.
Large enough to develop its own mythology, yet small enough to be
provincial and petty, the city of Arealva (standing in for Brazil, and
the world at large) is itself a character in Branda o's latest novel,
toying with and finally consuming its citizens with the innocent cruelty
of a cat with its prey--it's nothing personal, but it needs the meat. A
cross between a film noir and a Greek tragedy, with more than its share
of sex and drugs (though no rock 'n' roll), The Good-Bye Angel begins
with a murder and ends in a panorama of ambition, obsession, libido,
hypocrisy, and loneliness.