“Part memoir, part cautionary tale about the hazards of trying to publish an English-language daily newspaper in a foreign country, Stephen Bloom’s The Brazil Chronicles is both entertaining and instructive. With its cast of misfits–ranging from neurotic dreamers and ambitious novices to hard-drinking swashbucklers and smooth glad-handers––it reads at times like a real-life version of satirical novels about journalism like Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop or George Gissing’s New Grub Street. But it also zeroes in on the internal conflicts inherent to putting out any newspaper, such as tensions between the business and reporting sides, as well as others that are unique to working under a military dictatorship. I was in Rio de Janeiro at the same time as Bloom, and this book, an engaging combination of thorough research and personal anecdotes, is chock-full of uproarious stories that I had never heard until now. Who knew that Hunter S. Thompson did a stint in Brazil, perfecting the maniacal antics and style that later made him a literary star?”—Larry Rohter, Brazil correspondent, Newsweek, 1977 to 1982, The New York Times, 1998 to 2008, author of Into the Amazon

“Reading The Brazil Chronicles is like sitting with a bunch of foreign correspondents in some seedy bar drinking questionable local booze as they boast, brag, bust balls and raise hell between deadlines. In his two years in Brazil, Stephen Bloom rode the rails of newspaper’s golden age, and witnessed the initial stages of print journalism’s calamitous demise. This book is a newspaperman’s account of a newspaperman’s life and dreams. Filled with egos, ruthless competition, exaggeration and envy—elements of the air inside any newsroom—The Brazil Chronicles is a first draft of what newspapers once were, and an evergreen profile of the men and women who got off on the clack of typewriters, the smell of ink and the crazy adrenaline of deadlines.”—Anthony DePalma, former New York Times foreign correspondent; author of The Cubans, The Man Who Invented Fidel, and Here

"Steeped in facts and tropical heat, this memoir will make you young. A budding journalist in 1970s Brazil uncovers a world of expats and adventurers in a historically fraught time. Reading it made me want to have a caipirinha in Copacabana with this vivid storyteller.”—Andrei Codrescu, NPR commentator, author of Too Late for Nightmares: New Poems

"In his fun and informative homage to life as an ex-pat on an English language newspaper in Rio, Stephen Bloom explores a world teeming with vitality that might otherwise have been lost to the dustbins of history. Unexpected treats abound. On its own the correspondence in the early sixties between staff writer Hunter S. Thompson and Phil Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, is worth the price of admission, but there is so much more to admire, to mull and to hail in this recreation of life in what the author calls a “rogue’s paradise” as a ragtag group of itinerant journalists live the dream of creating a global-minded newspaper in Latin America. They may have been doomed, but they are never dull. Must reading for anyone who loves newspapers, scoundrels, visionaries and a taut tale well told."—Madeline Blaise, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, author of To the New Owners