Noite (''Night'') is a novel, written by the famed Brazilian writer Érico Veríssimo in 1954.

Plot summary

In the 1950s, a man finds himself in the middle of the streets of

Porto Alegre Porto Alegre (, , Brazilian ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Its population of 1,488,252 inhabitants (2020) makes it the twelfth most populous city in the country and the center of Brazil's fif ...

with a wallet full of money... and no memory of any past events. He finds two "vultures of the night", enigmatic noctivague figures with a high penchant for

bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Beer * National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst * Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...

lifestyles. The "vultures" (called The Master and The Hunchback) take the man on a surrealistic journey through the darkest places of the city, to "enjoy the night": a funeral parlor, the emergency service of a hospital, a deluxe

whorehouse A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub pa ...

and a low-level working class

cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining o ...

. At the same time, the two enigmatic figures surreptitiously try to make the man-with-no-memory assume that he committed a horrendous crime early that night, in which a woman was the subject of a brutal passion-related crime and no perpetrator was yet arrested by the

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...

. The book has a unique atmosphere in depicting the low-level bohemy that crowded some places in the Brazilian urban legends. In the 1980s, Brazilian film director

José Louzeiro José de Jesus Louzeiro (September 19, 1932 – December 29, 2017) was a Brazilian novelist, screenwriter and reporter. Louzeiro was born in São Luís. He started working in 1948 as an intern at the newspaper ''O Imparcial''. In 1953, when he w ...

conducted a movie loosely based on the book.

References

1954 Brazilian novels Novels set in Porto Alegre Brazilian novels adapted into films {{Brazil-lit-stub