Seeds of Suffering - V is the fifth of six books covering Brazilian history from the years 1864 to 1919.
Against the backdrop of the Paraguayan War in late 1864, the spirited Camila maintains her lascivious ways. She navigates the various avenues of her carnal lifestyle while Macario, a teenage boy from her orphanage who suffers from childhood post-traumatic stress disorder, takes up arms in the Brazilian army and endures unspeakable humiliation and trauma.
The war sparks enormous cultural changes, including the abolition of slavery, and as Brazil lurches out of a monarchy and into a troubled democracy, massive overcrowding in Rio de Janeiro from the freed slaves creates a hostile environment of racism, poverty, and disease.
Despite a tuberculosis outbreak, Camila continues her lifestyle until she, too, contracts the disease and is forced to leave the orphanage to safeguard the health of others. Meanwhile, the city barrels forward even as it struggles to overcome the darkness that threatens to destroy it.
A twisting tale of tragedy, adventure, and romance, this compelling novel takes an unapologetic look at the consequences of abuse and its cycle of suffering in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
About the Author: Douglas Reid Copeland is a first-time novelist who was educated at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.
Born in Brazil to American parents in 1947, he grew up in the Ipanema zone of Rio de Janeiro. A victim of childhood abuse, he developed chronic issues that marginalized him from society as a result of the mental trauma, sexual abuse, psychological and frontal castration, toxic shame, neglect, and indifference he endured during his formative and teenage years.
Only after his arrest in 1989 did he receive the help he needed to recover from a nightmarish life. He was put on five years of probation and underwent six years of treatment via Dr. Fred Berlin's National Institute for the Study, Prevention, and Treatment of Sexual Trauma.
After two visits to The Meadows in Arizona, psychiatric therapy, medications, Buddhist meditation, and twelve-step programs, Copeland is finally experiencing some freedom of redemption.
