Summary

Chapter 1 begins with 95-year-old Dores remembering her dear friend Graça as her stage persona, Sofia Salvador. She still hears Graça’s voice clearly in her mind. She listens to the recordings of the samba she played in their roda. She acknowledges that, although she tries to forget, she must acknowledge her pain to move on. Lyrics to “The Sweet River” are shared. It is a description of her experience and eventually severed connection to Riacho Doce.

In Chapter 2, also titled “The Sweet River,” Dores explains that she was born to a promiscuous and unmarried woman. She was raised by the cook of Riacho Doce’s Great House, Nena, who fed her donkey’s milk for nourishment. Dores was bullied often for her mother’s behavior and called “jega,” after the donkey she drank from (9). After the “world’s great financial crash,” the...