The Restinga explores dysfunctional sexual relationships in the familiar context of a love triangle, but it is set in the exotic African landscape of pre-war colonial Angola in 1960, where the author spent her childhood. The Restinga evolved from a short story presented at a graduate fiction workshop led by Joseph and Amanda Boyden at the University of New Orleans’ Madrid campus in the summer of 2007. Research for this project included: Many interviews with the author’s parents Compilation and review of family home movies made at the time Interview with Richard J. Houk, author of the article: “The Hotel Terminus: A Farce without an Ending” (The Journal of African Travel-Writing, Number 1, September 1996 (pp. 42-51) Interview with Nancy Henderson-James, author of: “At Home Abroad: An American Girl in Africa” (http://nancyhendersonjames.com/) The Lover, a novel by Marguerite Duras, influenced the author in her writing of The Restinga. This ex-pat novel maps the sexual affair of a very young girl and a much older Chinese man in colonial Vietnam of the late 1920s. Both works look into the sexuality of a “tck” (third culture kid) in an exotic landscape.