Foreword Magazine Review
AUTOBIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Trust the Bluer Skies : Meditations on Fatherhood
paulo da costa, University of Regina Press
Softcover $24.95 (256pp) 978-0-88977-995-2
paulo da costa’s heartbreaking memoir Trust the
Bluer Skies is a bittersweet ode to memories of
lost times and places.
The book explores da costa’s relationship with
his four-year-old son, Koah, during a months-
long, pivotal trip from Canada to da costa’s birth-
place in rural Portugal, undertaken in an effort to
expose Koah to his heritage and extended family
life. The book is intentional in considering how
traditions are passed from one generation to
another, as from a loving father to his son.
In Portugal, da costa himself was eager to
find the home he remembered before it crum-
bled under the demands of economic progress
and cultural change. Images of aging family
members leading simple lives and celebrating
age-old holidays are used to show what could be
lost. And da costa’s depictions of the lush land-
scape and its people are haunting and beautiful,
featuring “pigeon-filled skies” and century-old
irrigation ditches moved to make way for tract
homes and modernization. His poignant ram-
bles with his son—treated like a family archaeo-
logical expedition—are covered too.
The extended holiday informs the text’s tight
organization: it begins with da costa’s family’s
arrival and ends with them packing their lug-
gage to return home. The brief trip results in a
further sense of loss, emphasizing the shortness
of childhood and its special pleasures. Indeed,
the family discovers that home is not as timeless
as da costa remembered. And just as the past has
the power to transform the present: because of
their presence, changes are made to the wider
family’s saga.
Reaching backward can be both grounding
and transformative according to Trust the Bluer
Skies, a haunting memoir about the perils and
promise of returning home and the joy of leaving
it forever changed.
JEREMIAH ROOD