Disguised as a novel, Araujo's Stone is an autobiographical account of a Creole family's predicaments in Providence, Rhode Island. Descendants of Cape
Verdean immigrants, the family faces the loss of their property due to a govern-mental decree called eminent domain, ratified in 1954 by the Supreme Court and still in effect today. The decree allows local governments to compel property owners to sell in the name of the "public good".

The theme of the novel is to fight injustice in an environment dominated by the affluent white society of Providence. The theme runs parallel with the fate of Araujo, an immigrant seaman from the Cape Verde Islands, a hardworking, loyal American citizen. Feeling betrayed by government officials and turning bitter toward the end of his life, his last wish is "Don't bury me in this country." His nephew Tiago, accompanied by his wife and friends, decides to bury Araujo at sea. The obstacles standing in the way of the burial are reminiscent of those in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (though the comparison ends with the obstacles).

The narrative voice is honest, but indignation alone is not enough to create a good novel. The story is structured around pages and pages of dialogue, occasionally interrupted by brief lyrical summaries of the characters' states of mind and their circumstances while on the boat with the coffin. Everything is crammed into dialogue here: family history, background information on the characters, even the characterization itself is drawn within the frame of the dialogue. Rare is the page where the reader can rest and reflect. The quasi-omniscient point of view is consistent, but the sudden shifts from past tense to present — often in the same sentence — are jarring, and so are some bits of conversation constructed as if written for the stage. Redundancies abound, the text is full of typos and glitches. Self-published with the assistance of TurnKey Press, the book was probably never looked over by a professional editor.

Despite the novel's shortcomings, the author's passionate drive to tell the truth strikes a chord of compassion. Given that the story is based on a real and ongoing problem, perhaps the book would have turned out better if composed in the less demanding form of the memoir.

TurnKey Press, 2005: ISBN 978-0-9754803-9-7