Breaking Stones

Book excerpt: Breaking Stones is a book about hope, about over-coming all odds, about coming to terms with ones self, and, above all, about the joy of giving back. Alves was born in a rural mountainous region of Portugal. The setting may have been mid-20th century, but the living conditions were Stone Age - no electricity, no running water, no creature comforts of any variety. Breaking Stones follows Alves odyssey from a boyhood spent with his best friend, Burro the donkey, in Portugal to the social alienation he experienced in Germany to the culture shock he felt in Montreal, where his family moved when he was a teen. The adventure continues as Alves tries to find himself as everything from a wannabe rock star to a worm picker, a club-owner to a calche-driver, a landlord to a political activist, a steel-worker to a high-tech consultant, a restaurateur to a philanthropist. In the midst of everything, Alves experiences the euphoria and heartbreak and tragedy of marriage and fatherhood. And ultimately, the kid from the Stone Age emerges intact and wiser in the Internet Age.