Lúcia: Testimonies of a Brazilian Drug Dealer's Woman (review)

Robert Gay's book Lúcia: Testimonies of a Brazilian Drug Dealer's Woman provides a compelling and often heart-rending look into the life of one woman caught up in drug dealing, violence, police corruption and urban crime in Rio de Janeiro. Given the wealth of testimonial literature from other parts of Latin America, and the near canonical status of Carolina Maria de Jesus's memoir of life in a favela in São Paulo in the 1950s, it is surprising that so little testimonial literature from Brazil's underclass has seen the light of day (recent exceptions are MV Bill and Celso Athayde's books, and the collection A Favela Fala). Gay's book admirably fills this gap. Lúcia's life story shows how naturalized violence has become for residents of Rio's favelas, and how deeply drug-trafficking has infiltrated daily life. Her narrative also off ers a seldom-seen glance into the role of women in drug-trafficking which, as Gay points out, is "without a doubt, a male-centered and male-dominated world."

Gay's book combines a compelling first-person narrative with a balanced and accessibly-written contextual analysis of the causes and eff ects of inequality, urban violence and drug-trafficking. Gay has organized the book so that interviews with Lúcia about her journey into, and perhaps out of, Rio's drug trade are matched with analytical chapters on topics such as the police, the prison system, and the economy. Th e narrative interviews and analytical chapters profit from each other: Lúcia's compelling life story drives the book while Gay's contextual analysis helps provide a background for Lúcia's story. Lúcia, in turn, highlights the complexities of life in Rio's favelas, nuances which are often ignored. Th e book's oscillation between contextual analysis and personal narrative is testimony to both Gay's long-term research in Rio's favelas and to his long-term friendship with Lúcia. It also provides the book with two elements all too often missing in analysis of Rio's favelas: historical depth, and a view of favela residents as, in however complex and contradictory ways, subjects of their own history.

As Gay points out, Lúcia would seem to be an odd choice for the subject of a testimonial-style book. She is not an activist, rebel, or a spokesperson for an NGO. She lacks much of an awareness of the large-scale forces which conspire to reproduce poverty and violence. Lúcia does not seem in any way to be a "typical" favela resident. In fact, she repeatedly reminds the reader how hard she struggled to make her own path through the world stating: "I never wanted to live . . . you know, live and take care of a house . . . no." (17) She is though, exactly the sort of voice that is all too rarely heard: full of personal idiosyncracies which emphasize the highly heterogeneous character of residents of Rio's favelas.

One of the main goals of the book is to examine why favela residents become involved in drug trafficking. Lúcia herself off ers various, and not always consistent, explanations for becoming what she calls a "mulher de bandido," or drug-trafficker's woman. She states that becoming a drug-dealer's girlfriend was a personal decision she made to escape the authority of her family, and have access to clothes, money, and adventure. Once she becomes involved with her first drug-trafficking boyfriend, the mixture of choice and coercion becomes difficult to untangle. As she becomes an object of attraction for increasingly influential traffickers, it becomes difficult, and dangerous, for Lúcia to say no. At the same time, she values the increased attention and status that she gains as the woman of a succession of "donos," or local drug bosses. Involvement in drug trafficking is presented as a grey zone where choice, coercion, seduction, and necessity all...