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Kicking the Sky Audiobook
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In 1977 a shoeshine boy, Emanuel Jacques, is brutally raped and murdered in Toronto. In the aftermath of the crime, twelve-year-old Antonio Rebelo and his rapscallion friends explore their Portuguese neighborhood’s dark garages and labyrinthine back alleys. The boys develop a curious relationship with a charismatic, modern-day Fagin who is master over an amoral world of hustlers, thieves, and drug dealers.
As the media unravels the truth behind the shoeshine-boy murder, Antonio starts to see his family—and his neighborhood—as never before. He becomes aware of the dashed hopes of immigrants, of the influence of faith and the role of church, and of the frightening reality that no one is really taking care of him. So intent are his parents and his neighbors on keeping the old traditions alive that they act as if they still live in a small Portuguese village, not in a big city that puts their kids in the kind of danger they would not dare imagine.
Antonio learns about bravery and cowardice, life and death, and the heart’s capacity for both love and unrelenting hatred in this stunning coming-of-age novel set against the backdrop of a true crime that shook the city.
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“The novel remains an impressive achievement: a synthesis of two fraught worlds. It reminds us that hidden gay lives blossom, or shrivel, inside every larger community. Kicking the Sky bridges its polarized worlds, staying true to the humanity in each. It’s one of the best things fiction can do.”
— National Post
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“De Sa tells his story with a sure hand. Emotion is balanced by dark humor…Kicking the Sky is a rich and compulsively readable addition to the fiction of [Toronto], a novel that, like most of the good ones, is funny, heart-breaking and humane.”
— Toronto Star -
“De Sa, who is described on the book’s cover as a librarian-teacher in Toronto, has given us a beguiling coming-of-age story—harked back to an event that shocked the country and had massive repercussions—and at the same time managed to beautifully capture a community and an era.”
— Globe and Mail (Toronto)
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About Anthony De Sa
Anthony De Sa grew up in Toronto’s Portuguese community. His short fiction has been published in several North American literary magazines. Anthony's first book, Barnacle Love, was critically acclaimed and became a finalist for the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2009 Toronto Book Award.
Anthony graduated from University of Toronto and did his post-graduate work at Queen’s University. He attended The Humber School for Writers and Ryerson University. He is currently a teacher-librarian at Michael Power/St. Joseph High School. He lives in Toronto with his wife and three boys.