We were Americans abroad. We weren't the doomed travellers in a Paul Bowles novel, and we weren't the idealists or the malarial, religion-damaged burnouts in something by Greene; but we were people far from home nevertheless. My husband was in the chrysalis stage of becoming a rich man, and idealism was never my vice. The term among expats for people like me was 'trailing spouse'. A brilliant and funny novel set in Brazil.