It is rare you come across a book that stuns you and leaves you gasping for breath, in the happiest way possible. It is also rare that you wish the book didn’t have to end so soon and you wanted to read more and know more about the characters. However, it is true that a book ends when it does and when the writer feels that there is nothing left to say anymore. “Sergio Y” is the kind of book that says what it has to, leaves a void in your heart when you’re done with it and leaves you with a bittersweet feeling which anyway translates to life.
“Sergio Y.” by Alexandre Vidal Porto is a layered book – it is complex, surreal and revolves around the pursuit of happiness so strong that as a reader you just want them all to find that elusive idea of happiness. You want the central character and the others to be happy. You want life to give them that shot at it and let them be to their device. Alexandre writes with such conviction and skill that you want to step out, meet the first person on the street and hug him or her, because people need more understanding and some senseless mad loving in this world, now more than ever.
Armando is a seventy-year-old highly esteemed and extremely qualified psychiatrist in São Paulo and the narrator of Sergio Y. He is writing this journal or a report because years ago he had a patient named Sergio, a seventeen-year-old boy who came to see him for several months before abruptly ending their sessions. This happened without any explanation after Sergio returned from a short vacation in New York City. He just knew what he wanted and he had found it, so he deemed it only fair to end the sessions. A couple of years later Armando learns from Sergio’s mother that Sergio is happy in NYC and is a chef and soon plans to open his own restaurant.
Cut ahead to a few weeks and Armando learns of Sergio’s murder in the papers. His murder haunts Armando. He doesn’t know why he feels so strongly for this patient, whose only motive was to be happy and find happiness wherever he could. On further discovery, Armando realizes that there is no record of the death of Sergio Yacoubian, but only that of a Sandra Yacoubian. Armando is further perplexed. How could Sergio hide something so important? Where did it all begin? Armando seeks answers and all of this leads him to NYC, where it all began. He also learns of how Sandra died.
The book is all about the pursuit of happiness – of memories, migration and the need to belong. Why did I love this book? Because it shows you that you can be happy, only that you have to work toward it which Sergio did. Sergio finds happiness in Sandra. He cannot live as a man so he decides to change and be happy. The book also is of perspectives – of Sandra’s parents, of the murderer, of Armando as a husband and a father and of how cities make change possible within you as a person. Porto looks at cultures within human beings and the need for those to mingle with the outside world, which is so essential.
“Sergio Y” leaves with you with optimism, a sweet longing that things are fine no matter how long or short your life might be, and with the knowing that all you have to do is find your happiness and chase it. Alexandre Vidal Porto, thank you for this beautiful, gregarious book. I loved every word of it. Thank you again.
