Caipirinhas were flowing at the Coral Gables Museum last night as my friend Ben Batchelder presented his new book, To Belem and Back. A few years ago Ben drove with his black Lab from Tiradentes, where he lives part of the year, to Belem, the port city in the north, and then returned home along the coast, covering over 10,000 miles in a journey that, as he said last night, was the equivalent of driving back and forth across the United States twice.
Ben self-published the book, deciding early on that he didn't want to go the traditional route (taking the same approach to publishing that he had to travel). Qualitywise, the book would have been well received by publishers; it's unclear however, with the industry's current parochialism, whether anyone would have eagerly taken on a book about a Brazilian road trip. It's the kind of book that would have easily found a home in the 80s, but today Americans are more interested in memoirs. The citizens of the country with the most influence in the world have unfortunately, if not disastrously, turned their backs to the world.
But a good crowd came out last night to hear Ben read and talk about Brazil. (The event was sponsored by the Council of the Americas.) Afterwards, waiting in line for a book, I asked two women if they were Brazilian. "No," Anat said, "we're fans of Brazil." We formed an immediate Brazilian Admiration Society.
Later, I talked to a woman from Wales, now living in Hollywood, who had never been to Brazil and wondered what was so special about the country. I told her of my visit a few years ago to Ouro Preto. My friend arrived by bus from Sao Paulo and I walked her to her pension, where the owner answered the door, a woman who looked to be about 15 years older than Lilian. Within minutes the two women were chatting, laughing, warmly touching each other.
"So you know her?" I asked Lilian when the woman had gone for the key. "You've stayed here before?"
"No," Lilian said. "We've never met."
The two women - innkeeper and guest - had instantly gotten beyond the business relationship and interacted with each other as one human being to another. More than that - like friend with friend. And because I'd seen this only in Brazil, it struck me as uniquely Brazilian.