The Pleasure You Suffer - by Gerald Brennan & Leanna Gruhn (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Saudade reportedly has no direct English translation; it's a Portuguese word describing the nostalgic longing for something that may never return, or may not exist. This feeling can be strangely comforting; author Manuel de Mello calls it "A pleasure you suffer, an ailment you enjoy." It permeates the music of Brazil, another nation steeped in slavery and sadness and the hope for a better life. Yet this heartsick yearning's actually very familiar to those of us born and raised in North America; we often call it "the blues." This saudade-themed anthology explores this fascinating emotional territory in exciting poems and stories from a range of new and up-and-coming authors-pieces that linger after the last page is turned.

Review Quotes

"Here are the stories and poems and essays of what we want and never talk about; the desire to be hurt, the pleasures of being in pain, the gloriousness of the unknown...In a better world, The Pleasure You Suffer would be the book you'd find in the cheap motel you didn't mean to rent, and, like Gideon's Bible, you'd read it for the nightmares and the hope." - Dave Newman, author of The Poem Factory and Two Small Birds

"The stories and poems in this one-of-a-kind anthology express an intimate familiarity and poignant vulnerability with the universal sweet pain inherent in the yearning for a gone-but-not-forgotten past of parents, siblings, spouses, lovers, one-night stands, and even youth itself in this too-short life." - Brian Costello, author of Losing in Gainesville