The Weight of Silence – Guilt, complicity, and the cost of looking away.

Approximately 60,00 words and falls within the literary fiction genre, with strong elements of crime fiction and social commentary.

An Imperfect Friend follows Rodrigo, a journalist who returns to Cidade de Deus, the infamous Rio de Janeiro favela he left behind decades ago, to write a book. His investigation leads him to the story of Marcelo, a childhood friend turned drug lord, whose tragic downfall forces Rodrigo to confront his own complicity, privilege, and guilt. As he pieces together Marcelo’s life, Rodrigo finds himself entangled with Marcelo’s son, Fabio, a social worker striving to break the cycle of violence.

The novel explores memory, redemption, and the moral dilemmas of storytelling, using a non-linear narrative that weaves together past and present. It challenges conventional notions of justice, fate, and personal responsibility, offering a nuanced, deeply emotional look at the social and political realities of Brazil’s marginalized communities.

Key Details & Selling Points:
Strong central character: Rodrigo is a deeply flawed but compelling narrator, caught between his past and present.
Socially relevant themes: Addresses systemic poverty, crime, and the complexities of urban life in Brazil.
Unique perspective: Goes beyond stereotypes of favelas to depict their history, politics, and human stories.
Emotionally resonant: Characters like Marcelo, Erika (Marcelo’s former partner), and Fabio add depth and heart.
Thought-provoking themes: Questions morality, privilege, and the power of rewriting one’s own story.
Broad appeal: Attracts readers of literary fiction, crime fiction with a conscience, and those interested in Brazilian culture and social justice.
This novel stands out due to its deeply personal yet politically charged storytelling, offering an intimate and introspective take on themes of friendship, guilt, and redemption in one of the world’s most complex urban landscapes.

The Place
1 “I want to live an honest life!”
Can you ever lose something you never had? If there is an art to losing, what level of mastery is required not to know how to lose but to recognize the neglect? We can lose what we dearly want, or we can lose for lack of care. I discovered late in life that I might have made a significant mistake: failing in my share of commitment to a friendship. What’s the point of learning this so late, when there’s little you can do to make it right? Would it not be better to live in blissful ignorance? I don’t believe I’m at a stage in life where I should begin balancing my past—certainly, I still have many more mistakes to make, and, after all, there’s little I can do to change what has already happened. And yet, I don’t seem able to simply let it go.

The truth is, since we now know that time is not linear, yes, the past can be changed. Right now, while sifting through memories, I see shadows of my absence creeping among lives and deaths, tears and laughter from the past. Even if I try to cause a warp in time, could my former self be capable of being different from who it was? Maybe, I keep thinking, maybe I could change what I was when it was needed to be different. Yet I still sense a feeling of helplessness in the face of all that is done.

A particular sunny day of the past can never be equaled. Looking back, the warmth of the air, the soft breeze, the scent of youth and freshness all signal that such days are irretrievable. Yet, the past repeats itself in subtle, unexpected ways. Now, when I scroll through old newspaper headlines on my computer, I see a ray of sunshine slicing the wooden floor into fragmented patterns while dust floats lazily in the air. But instead of the mild sun, old air creeps through a crack in the window. Instead of the golden glow, the sterile blue light of my screen invades the room. How can one relive the magic of past days with a body so entrenched in the present?

Here is my body; here is where I believe my soul is: sitting at my desk, flipping through 1980s newspapers on my computer. After a successful professional life that began as a foca—a seal, as we call a rookie in journalism—passing through all the stages of a newsroom, I am looking back at my life to write about a subject I had always avoided: my own background. To be precise, the environment in which I grew up to become the man I am now. At sixty, I accepted the challenge of writing a book about my old neighborhood, Cidade de Deus, from its improvised beginnings, through the explosion of violence, to its contemporary reintegration as an organic part of the city of Rio de Janeiro.

In a sense, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant to revisit the stories of my old neighborhood. Some of them I hadn’t actually known until now. Although the vast majority were familiar, the temporal distance between events and my reading of them placed them in a different context that surprised even me. Some names sounded familiar, some faces too, but what truly caught my attention was a photograph of someone I had known long ago. I wouldn’t be so certain as to call him a friend, since I had never thought about him until this moment. But looking at his face—at the smile on his face—drew me back to my past like a Proustian madeleine.

It was Marcelo, a boy I met when I was about fourteen, and he was one or two years younger than me. He looked my age, but he acted older. Marcelo had become a criminal, and for a while, he terrorized the neighborhood. I wasn’t there when he reached the apex of his power.

The Marcelo I knew was a magnetic boy, possessing a gravitational pull that drew people around him like satellites. He was a star whose brilliant light could either illuminate or eclipse those in his orbit. I was one of his satellites, and to this day, I am not sure whether he illuminated me or cast me into complete darkness.

The newspaper article covered what seemed to be his surrender and quoted him: “I want to be an honest man.”
2 The spark of a connection
The bus felt like it was gliding up the winding Niemeyer Avenue at the foot of Dois Irmãos hill. The vastness of the ocean, with its blue expanse and the wind on our faces, rivaled any rollercoaster ride. We clung to the poles, laughing as if we might be flung from the bus and swallowed by the sea. Bus rides in Rio de Janeiro are still a wild adventure, just like the Atlantic waters remain that same piercing blue. Marcelo woke me up off my daydream. As soon the bus stopped at the foot of Vidigal Hill[i] we got off at that busy intersection. I looked up at the sky merging with the hilltop and felt a wave of dizziness through me. Marcelo again took my arm, leading me toward the street. I can’t remember exactly what took us there. Perhaps it was his grandmother who lived nearby. But all I remember is that bus ride: the ocean’s blue depths, the fleeting shapes of foam, the jarring movements of the bus, the wind knotting up my hair. And the friendship that seemed, at the time, like it would last forever.

Marcelo’s sister met my mother at a sewing and dressmaking course. While she didn’t pick up much on sewing, she quickly became the heart of the group, making everyone laugh and momentarily forget their daily struggles. My mother was charmed, and soon enough, she joined us for Sunday lunches, filling our afternoons with laughter that even made us forget the usual TV variety shows. That’s how I first heard of Marcelo—until one Sunday, when she brought him along, and I finally put a face to the name.

Marcelo was the youngest of seven siblings. The rest were much older, and there was no father figure around. His mother, with the support of her two eldest sons, worked hard to provide for the family. Marcelo, being the baby of the family, was adored and doted on by everyone. It was a family consensus that he was something special—both in appearance and intellect. In truth, Marcelo was street-smart and very persuasive, but his family, not knowing the difference, thought he was simply brilliant.

He was already turning heads as an up-and-coming soccer star, and for his age, he was well ahead in physical development. His confidence was undeniable; he always seemed certain that he was exactly where he belonged, doing what he was meant to do. He exuded a kind of bravado that made people notice him. Everyone admired him, except my mother. After that first Sunday lunch when his sister brought him along, Mom immediately called him a spoiled, insolent brat and warned me to keep my distance.

Of course, that only fueled my curiosity. Marcelo’s confidence and daring spirit drew me in. Perhaps, deep down, I wanted to embody some of his fearless energy, to learn from his boldness, to confront my own world with the same poise he seemed to have. Not that I was without my own qualities. By the time Marcelo came into my life, around thirteen or fourteen, I was a good student—always scoring well and rarely causing trouble. As an only son, I gave my parents little reason to worry.

Someone once said that people are largely shaped by their surroundings. If that’s true, my future didn’t look promising. Growing up in a housing project on the outskirts of the city—a place intentionally designed to isolate and contain society’s “undesirables”—was neither idyllic nor easy. The early waves of drug trafficking, during the first years of 1970s, were already claiming lives and shaping destinies around me. I stayed on what some would call the “right path,” but that choice came with its own challenges. It meant a slow, sometimes painful drift into isolation, distancing myself from the lively pulse of the community around me. Marcelo, with his contagious energy, offered me a way out of that solitude, a bridge back to life beyond caution. I grabbed that opportunity as if my life, present and future, depended on what he would show me about the world.

That bright morning, Marcelo showed up at my door with an invitation to join him on a trip to Vidigal. I lied to my mother, saying we were just heading up to Morrinho, the abandoned construction site up the hill behind our building where kids gathered to play soccer. She asked no further questions, and I slipped away with Marcelo, not even curious about what he had in mind. Deep down, I believed that any day spent with him would hold some kind of thrilling, unforeseen adventure—and I was right.

As we started ascending the main road that wound up the Morro do Vidigal, Marcelo suddenly spotted a group of young men dealing drugs at the corner of a narrow alley. Without hesitation, he strode over, striking up a conversation with one of them, while I hung back, observing his casual familiarity with the scene. It felt like he didn’t want me involved; he didn’t motion for me to join. Moments later, though, something unexpected happened that would more than justify my distance: a police car appeared from seemingly nowhere, screeching to a halt as three officers leapt out, shouting commands. The group instantly scattered, darting into the web of narrow alleys that crisscrossed the favela.

I quickly retreated, blending in with a group of older men at a nearby bar, nursing their beer cans and glasses of cachaça. From my hidden vantage, I could see Marcelo standing defiantly, as though daring the officers to approach him. I wasn’t sure if he had any drugs on him, but I feared trouble was imminent. To my astonishment, the police simply ignored him, rushing past to chase after the others. With the coast clear, Marcelo came over to where I was hiding, demonstrating no reaction to what had just happened. He did actually let some reaction escape his nonchalant mask: disappointment.  Without any comment, he just said: “Let’s go up”.

His grandmother lived high up on the hill. After twenty minutes navigating narrow alleys filled with children playing, women gathered in circles gossiping, and men lounging on steps, passing around beer bottles, we reached a small wooden shack. Marcelo’s grandma was already at the door. He went toward her and they hugged for several minutes while I stood aside, feeling a bit overlooked. Then she smiled warmly at me and welcomed us into a simple room that served as her bedroom, living room, and kitchen. A single window filled the space with magical natural light, perfectly framing two unforgettable shades of blue: the sky and the ocean.

“Let me serve you boys some cake!” she said, interrupting my gaze toward the horizon. We sat down on the worn-out sofa while she bustled around the tiny space, looking for cups and plates. Marcelo kept talking to her in the meantime, and I quietly observed their relationship. They were very close, and it was clear that Marcelo held her in great respect. Watching them made me think of my own grandma, my mom’s stepmother, Lizete. She had always been very affectionate with me—perhaps as a way to make up for the fact that, in the beginning, she hadn’t treated my mother with the same tenderness.

Marcelo’s grandmother reached for an old camera and asked me to take a picture of her with her grandson. They stood by the only window in the place, and I noticed that the brightness from outside would probably affect how their faces showed in the photo, but I preferred not to say anything. I did as she asked, and just as she began putting the camera away, Marcelo asked her to take a picture of the two of us. We stood in the same spot, and she snapped the picture.

We enjoyed the chocolate cake and lemonade she served us. They continued talking about his mother and brothers, while I simply sat back and watched them. There’s not much I can recall from that day.

Although fragmented, it all returned as soon as my eyes fell upon the newspaper story. In a 1983 edition of a prominent newspaper, a photograph of Marcelo standing next to a man in a police uniform took up the lower half of the page. The headline read: “Feared Bandit Surrenders Weapons: ‘I Want to Live an Honest Life.’” It didn’t shock me that Marcelo had ended up on the wrong side of the law, but this surrender had happened after my father’s death and after my mother and I moved out of Cidade de Deus.

Initially, I was baffled by how I had become so removed from the events unfolding in my old neighborhood that I hadn’t even known about this twist in my “almost” best friend’s life. But, in truth, I understood. When I moved on with my life and away from Cidade de Deus, I was mentally detached from that past. I avoided discussing it, avoided revisiting it, and resisted the temptation to ever go back. Leaving that neighborhood was a liberation in countless ways, and I wasn’t about to let past ghosts jeopardize my new life.

[i] Favela do Vidigal is a unique and vibrant community in Rio de Janeiro, known for its stunning views overlooking the ocean and Leblon. It’s become an artistic hub with colorful murals and a thriving music scene. Vidigal has a strong sense of community and a culture of mutual support. It’s also embracing tourism, with guesthouses and restaurants catering to visitors, which also presents the challenge of gentrification. There are ongoing efforts to improve infrastructure and promote social empowerment. Access is primarily by motorbike taxi or kombi vans. It stands in contrast to the nearby wealthy Leblon neighborhood, highlighting social inequalities, but is also a testament to the resilience and creativity of its residents. Vidigal is a favela with a focus on community, art, and a unique blend of traditional life and increasing engagement with the outside world.

Sergio da Silva Barcellos has a master’s and PhD degree in Literary Studies from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. He was born in Brazil and has been extensively published both in Portuguese and English. His books in Portuguese include: “Toque de Silêncio, uma história de homossexualidade na Marinha do Brasil” (Coming-out story, Geração Editorial, 1997), “Plural de Nada” (Poetry, 1998), “Beijo da Morte” (Short-stories, 1994), “Dixco” (Poetry and graphic art, 1998), “Armadilha para a narrativa” (Literary criticism, 2004), “Escrita do eu, refúgio do outro” (Literary Criticism, 2018), “Vida por Escrito – Carolina Maria de Jesus” (Archival studies – 2015). In English, he has contributed with academic essays to collection of studies in the field of Life Writing and Auto/Biographical Studies to journals such as Biography, An Interdisciplinary Quarterly (University of Hawaii) and a/b: Auto/Biographical Studies (University of South Carolina, White Chapel).
With this new project, An Imperfect Friend, he returns to writing fiction by resorting to biofictional strategies to revisit his own humble background through his fictional narrator, Rodrigo Vasconcellos.