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A Novel
by Fernando A. Flores
Two women fight to save their dystopian border town―and literature―in this gonzo near-future adventure.
The year is 2038, and the formerly bustling town of Three Rivers, Texas, is a surreal wasteland. Under the authoritarian thumb of its tech industrialist mayor, Pablo Henry Crick, the town has outlawed reading and forced most of the town's mothers to work as indentured laborers at the Big Tex Fish Cannery, which poisons the atmosphere and lines Crick's pockets.
Scraping by in this godforsaken landscape are best friends Prosperina and Neftalí―the latter of whom, one of the town's last literate citizens, hides and reads the books of the mysterious renegade author Jazzmin Monelle Rivas, whose last novel, Brother Brontë, is finally in Neftalí's possession. But after a series of increasingly violent atrocities committed by Crick's forces, Neftalí and Prosperina, with the help of a wounded bengal tigress, three scheming triplets, and an underground network of rebel tías, rise up to reclaim their city―and in the process, unlock Rivas's connection to Three Rivers itself.
An adventure that only the acclaimed Fernando A. Flores could dream up, Brother Brontë is a mordant, gonzo romp through a ruined world that, in its dysfunction, tyranny, and disparity, nonetheless feels uncannily like our own. With his most ambitious book yet, Flores once again bends what fiction can do, in the process crafting a moving and unforgettable story of perseverance.
"[Flores'] prose is evocative, electric, and wildly original ... This is a wild ride of a novel, and a fascinating look at a future that, sadly, seems frighteningly plausible. A stunning tale of survival and a biting critique of book bans and late capitalism." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A mind-bending novel ... While invoking the Brontës, Flores' surreal tale wanders in a Rabelaisian manner ... Flores takes readers on a wild ride!" —Booklist (starred review)
"The trick with dystopia is to leave room for light, and lightness; in our real world, tragedy and comedy are braided together. Fernando A. Flores gets this: his imagination ranges from the grimmest realities, of blood and fire and life made small, all the way through to breathtaking hope, and surprise, and solidarity. Brother Brontë evokes Octavia Butler, William Gibson, and John Steinbeck; these are all my favorites, and with this book, Fernando A. Flores joins the list." ―Robin Sloan, author of Moonbound
"We fans of Fernando Flores's work have long admired his virtuoso word play, his wizardly conjuring of images, and the power of his Texas borderlands vision and voice. Brother Brontë is his wildest and bravest work yet." ―Héctor Tobar, author of Our Migrant Souls
"Deliciously odd, funny and affecting, Brother Brontë delights at every turn―of which there are a glorious many. A puzzle where each piece not only helps complete the picture but expands its margins, I cherished every character, every story, and (again) fell in love with Fernando A. Flores's profound empathy and wild imagination. Brother Brontë is a gorgeously bonkers joyride." ―Gerardo Sámano Córdova, author of Monstrilio
This information about Brother Brontë was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Fernando A. Flores was born in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and grew up in South Texas. He is the author of the collections Death to the Bullshit Artists of South Texas and Valleyesque and the novel Tears of the Trufflepig, which was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and named a best book of 2019 by Tor.com. His fiction has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, American Short Fiction, Ploughshares, Frieze, Porter House Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Austin, Texas.
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