If "Barnacle Love," the moving new novel from Anthony De Sa, does not win the 2008 Giller Prize this first-time author will still call himself a winner.
"Just to get an agent in Canada and get published is tough. That's why I feel like I've already won," says the Toronto high school teacher. "'Barnacle Love' was just meant to be a little book that would place me in the market somehow. It was never meant to catapult me onto the Giller longlist."
Now De Sa's name is mingling with the likes of Nino Ricci, David Adams Richards and other accomplished Canadian authors he teaches to his Grade 12 English students.
The irony hasn't been lost on De Sa or his students.
From the sleepy Portuguese village of Lomba da Maia to the colourful back alleys of Toronto's Little Portugal of the 1970s, "Barnacle Love" is, at its core, a father-son tale. But it is one laced with universal meaning.
A young fisherman named Manuel Rebelo washes up nearly dead on the shores of Newfoundland as the book opens. Determined to escape the suffocating smallness of his Portuguese village and the huge expectations his gorgon-like mother has for him, Manuel struggles to build a new life in Canada.
Escaping that hard upbringing, however, is not so easy. With masterful detail and larger-than-life characters, De Sa marries guilt, joy, resignation and an inescapable attachment to one's past as Manuel moves to Toronto, starts a family and puts the same crushing expectations on his son, Antonio.
"Manuel is the chosen son, but so is Antonio," says De Sa. "You'd think he'd do things differently with his son. But history repeats itself."
Dedicated to the memory of his parents, who moved to Canada from Portugal in the mid-1950s and early 1960s, De Sa's intimately woven novel rings with his first-hand understanding of how immigrant families sacrifice so that a "chosen" child can succeed.
"That stamp was on my forehead from an early age," says De Sa, whose blonde hair and blue eyes set him apart from the typical, dark-complected Portuguese kids he played with in the streets of Toronto. As De Sa says, "It was difficult for me to deal with, especially when I remember how my sister was pushed aside so that I could succeed."
Pain and beauty mingle De Sa's new world
Inspired by the soulful, suffering lyrics in the Portuguese blues, or fado, De Sa shaped Manuel's character with that haunting duality of pain and beauty.
"I wanted Manuel to have this tension," De Sa explains. "He's happy to have a chance for a new life. But at the same time he carries this deeply engrained sense of responsibility to the people he left behind - the people who sacrificed so he could have a better life."
That dynamic interested De Sa both as a teacher and parent of three young boys.
"Being a teacher I am very aware of immigrant parents who come here and the standard line is 'I did this for them. My kids must do well in school to do better than me.' But that often translates into being a doctor, a lawyer - a more European description of what success is," says De Sa.
"That's why I always tell my sons this one thing: Daddy wants you to grow up and be a good person. All the other dreams are yours," says De Sa.
Scoring very favourable reviews, De Sa does prickle somewhat at being labelled an "immigrant writer" by some critics.
"We are all immigrants in this country to varying degrees and we're very good at telling immigrant stories. But I see this book as a story of human relationships between fathers, sons and families," says De Sa.
"There is a much more universal idea at work here that transcends the moniker of immigrant writer," says De Sa. "I just found a different way to tell a universal story. I put the face of a community to it that hadn't been written about before."
"Barnacle Love's" powerful connection with readers from all ethnicities is unmistakable.
"The most incredible reward of writing this first book is to have people from varying backgrounds see a little bit of Manuel in their father," says De Sa. "My book has spanned cultures and that, to me, is wonderful."
Yet De Sa's greatest satisfaction comes from seeing "Barnacle Love" in the context of what it would have meant to his late father.
"Winning $50,000 would be great," he laughs. "But my father would have realized his own fiery immigrant dream if he saw my book published. Just knowing that is enough for me."
