Porto Lúa

by David Green

Boston-based writer, teacher and world traveler David Green has written a tour de force novel set in the Celtic region of Galicia during the latter half of the 20th century. Described as a coming-of-age novel, Porto Lúa introduces a country and people “living in a time before the disenchantment of the world, still engaging the mysteries of nature, of life and death, creatively without the explanations of modern science.” Green is a masterful writer, and his descriptions of the story’s windswept setting, between the sea, the mountains and the sky, is evocative and magical, evoking the rich prose of Gabriel García Márquez. He captures the pace of rural living in a way that often seems ethereal and spiritual. A senior lecturer at Boston University, where he teaches a popular course on writing, Green is an author and literary critic, whose other books are The Garden of Love and Other Stories (2010) and Atchley (1998). His special interests include Samuel Beckett and Modernism, and he has written scholarly articles on Beckett and Irish poet Brian Coffey.

Atmosphere Press / 648 pages / $24.95 paperback / February 2023