Spring 2021 - Lucky Man with Three Wives


“Did you come for something something?”

It sounds Asian to my tin ear: sow-jow?

“São João! The festa de São João do Porto,” says Avó, a celebration of summer solstice and São João’s feast day. Saint John the Baptist to us. We fell into this festa with no inkling: an easy train from Lisboa admiring storks and electric blue jacaranda trees along a hilly route. Is our timing lucky or unlucky? Crazed music rises from the small café across the road at a volume which rivals the jackhammers roaring inside our hotel walls.


Bio:

Mark Anthony Jarman’s latest story collection is Czech Techno. He is the author of 19 Knives, My White Planet, New Orleans is Sinking, Dancing Nightly in the Tavern, Knife Party at the Hotel Europa, and the travel book Ireland’s Eye. His novel Salvage King, Ya! is on Amazon.ca’s list of 50 Essential Canadian Books and is the number one book on Amazon’s list of best hockey fiction.