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Stories
by Ruben Reyes
Book Reviewed by:An electrifying debut story collection about Central American identity that spans past, present, and future worlds to reveal what happens when your life is no longer your own.
An ordinary man wakes one morning to discover he's a famous reggaetón star. An aging abuela slowly morphs into a marionette puppet. A struggling academic discovers the horrifying cost of becoming a Self-Made Man.
In There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, Ruben Reyes Jr. conjures strange dreamlike worlds to explore what we would do if we woke up one morning and our lives were unrecognizable. Boundaries between the past, present, and future are blurred. Menacing technology and unchecked bureaucracy cut through everyday life with uncanny dread. The characters, from mango farmers to popstars to ex-guerilla fighters to cyborgs, are forced to make uncomfortable choices—choices that not only mean life or death, but might also allow them to be heard in a world set on silencing the voices of Central Americans.
Blazing with heart, humor, and inimitable style, There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven subverts everything we think we know about migration and its consequences, capturing what it means to take up a new life—whether willfully or forced—with piercing and brilliant clarity. A gifted new storyteller and trailblazing stylist, Reyes not only transports to other worlds but alerts us to the heartache and injustice of our own.
An Alternate History of El Salvador or Perhaps the World
THE SPANISH SHIPS LEAVE THEIR DOCKS, but there is no crash landing, no savior knocking at the isthmus's shore—only civilization as it was and continues to be. A tempest thrashes La Niña around as men fall off her side in a choir of shrieks and prayers. An empire-size wave swells and crashes down on La Pinta, splintering the cork-oak frame and pine planks. The Santa Maria sinks, full of salty-sweet water, until it sits on the ocean floor. Bottom-feeders nibble on dead Spaniards' skin.
Another attempt, decades later. This is how the story goes: Thousands of Pipil stand before the Spanish soldiers with spears in their hands, obsidian blades pointed toward the rain clouds as they prepare for a battle that will determine who stays and who leaves this land they know as Cuscatlán or San Salvador; one name Spanish, one name true. The Spanish are on horses, the Pipil on foot, and the air soon fills with the sound of gunfire ...
Second-generation Salvadoran American writer Ruben Reyes Jr. employs science fiction and alternative history in his dozen varied stories about Latinx characters trying to connect with family and survive perilous situations....There is an elegiac tone to much of the book, but Reyes' playful approaches, including his blurring of genre lines, mostly temper any somberness...continued
Full Review
(768 words)
(Reviewed by Rebecca Foster).
Jamel Brinkley, author of Witness and A Lucky Man, finalist for the National Book Award
Ruben Reyes Jr. has announced himself here in impressive fashion. This wonderful debut collection displays a virtuosic fictional range, often in the realm of what some would call the speculative, but in any case the depth of emotion, the insight into the lives of immigrants, and the potency and warmth of the writing in each story will leave you saying, This is real. This is true. When you read There is a Rio Grande in Heaven, your mind will be sent in many thrilling directions, and it will be powerfully deepened. Mateo Askaripour, New York Times bestselling author of Black Buck and This Great Hemisphere
As stunning as it is surreal, There is a Rio Grande in Heaven bravely exposes the circuitry of our society––as well as its myths and lies––in ways that are jolting, jarring, and joyful. Capturing migrations domestic, international, and even interplanetary, Ruben Reyes Jr.'s debut depicts the astronomic costs so many incur in attempting to start anew, as well as the faith required to believe that a better tomorrow is possible. Wildly funny, so damn creative, and inspiring all the feels, Reyes and his work are out of this world. Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming
In this rich, lively and imaginative collection, Reyes' presents the richness of the American Latine and immigrant experience, not as we are perceived, but as we know and recognize ourselves to be. In Reyes' hands, robots, alternative colonial histories, and dream sequences are more than storytelling devices. They are as real and vivid as the grief, abandoned love and homelands these characters are trying to reconcile with their American realities. These are stories to treasure and ponder, long after the last page has been turned.In Ruben Reyes Jr.'s short story collection There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, speculative fiction is a way to rediscover the experiences of first- and second-generation Latinx immigrants. Alternative history might commemorate the devastating effects of genocide or alienation while at the same time offering imaginative escape from them. Other authors of speculative fiction, such as Zen Cho, Ken Liu, and Brenda Peynado, use similar strategies to shed fresh light on racism and migrants' sense of exile. We spotlight a few more examples below.
Babel by R.F. Kuang (2022) is a sweeping fantasy novel in which Robin Swift, an orphan, is taken from China to be educated at the Royal Institute of Translation at Oxford. He and his best friends&#...
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