Iaiá Garcia
By Machado de Assis
Cover: Lição no Meu Jardim (1930), painting by Eliseu Visconti (1866–1944) · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (artist died 1944)
In Rio de Janeiro in the 1860s a modest civil servant, Luís Garcia, his wife Estela and his young daughter Iaiá live close to the grand household of the widow Valéria, whose son Jorge is about to go off to the war with Paraguay. Machado de Assis follows the two families as feeling and ambition cross the line between rich and poor.
Summary written with Claude Sonnet 5.5.