The Lizard's Smile.

• Author: Mujica, Barbara

The Lizard's Smile is a political expose, a science fiction thriller, a mystery, and a sexual fantasy all rolled into one. One of the most exciting novels to come out of Brazil in a decade, it offers a cynical view of the present and a horrific view of the future.

Angelo Marcos Barreto is a hand some, charismatic, middle-aged politician with a big problem. It's not money. No. After twenty years of accepting kickbacks and bribes, diverting public funds into his own pocket and grabbing up land, he's a millionaire. Angelo Marcos's problem is more serious than money: It's his health. His doctor has just told him that he has an epidermoid carcinoma of the anal canal, in other, words, cancer of the ass, and will have to submit to chemotherapy. It's embarrassing. If the news gets out, it will ruin his image. The press will have a field day. His adversaries will toss around scatological jokes like frisbees. The best thing, his doctor decides, is for Angelo Marcos to spend some time on the island of Itaparica, in the state of Bahia, out of the limelight.

Ana Clara, Barreto's wife, isn't thrilled. Ana Clara has just opened a fitness center, and she's busy. She spends her time working out, swimming in the family pool, going to parties where people get crazy on coke, and smoking pot in the company of her girlfriends. With the encouragement of her confidante, Bebel, she has just made a monumental decision to change her life. She is going to start having affairs in order to discover her true erotic self. Itaparica, a quiet, boring little island inhabited mostly by fishermen, just doesn't fit into the picture.

But Ana Clara is in for some surprises. Joao Pedroso, a fishmonger and guide on the island, turns out to be one of the most fascinating men that Ana Clara has ever met. A graduate biologist, Joao Pedroso dropped out of society and became an alcoholic, yet he has a keen and curious mind, kept alert through stimulating conversations with the local priest, Father Monteirinho, and the head of the island hospital, Lucio Nemesio. Before long, Joao Pedroso and Ana Clara - who finds her husband increasingly repulsive as his treatments wear on - are lovers.

Strange things are happening on the island. Joao Pedroso sees a curious two-tailed lizard who seems to be smiling at him - or is it mocking him? A boy dies of a rare, infectious disease carried by sheep, but there are hardly any sheep in the vicinity. Bara...