Are We Ever Our Own
Published on 7. July 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-950774-61-6 (ISBN)
Description
Moving between Cuba and the U.S., the stories in Are We Ever Our Own trace the paths of the women of the far-flung Armando Castell family.
Related but unknown to each other, these women are exiles, immigrants, artists, outsiders, all in search of a sense of self and belonging. The owner of a professional mourning service investigates the disappearance of her employees. On the eve of the Cuban revolution, a young woman breaks into the mansion where she was once a servant to help the rebels and free herself. A musician in a traveling troupe recounts the last day she saw her father.
Linked by theme and complex familial bonds, these stories shift across genres and forms to excavate the violence wreaked on women's bodies and document the attempt to create something meaningful in the face of loss. They ask: who do we belong to? What, if anything, belongs to us?
Related but unknown to each other, these women are exiles, immigrants, artists, outsiders, all in search of a sense of self and belonging. The owner of a professional mourning service investigates the disappearance of her employees. On the eve of the Cuban revolution, a young woman breaks into the mansion where she was once a servant to help the rebels and free herself. A musician in a traveling troupe recounts the last day she saw her father.
Linked by theme and complex familial bonds, these stories shift across genres and forms to excavate the violence wreaked on women's bodies and document the attempt to create something meaningful in the face of loss. They ask: who do we belong to? What, if anything, belongs to us?
Reviews / Votes
"Are We EverOur Own is
a cabinet of wonders filled with uncanny intersections between the mythic and
the daily, the spectral and the earthed.... Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes writes with
marvelous insight into how the untold stories of the past can continue to haunt
the present, and crafts structures that delight and devastate in equal
measure-that feel as immense as time itself."
-Laura van den Berg,
author of I Hold a Wolf by the Ears and The
Third Hotel "Gabrielle
Lucille Fuentes writes with the poetic fierceness of Lorca, exploring multiple
subjectivities in this lyrical story collection on love and art, loss and
violence. Fuentes is a poignant and powerful voice in Latinx literature-and
beyond."
-Patricia Park, author of Re Jane "Are We Ever Our Own reads
like an arpeggio: the individual stories strike clear, distinctive notes that,
when abutted, come together into a rich, resonant chord. From contemporary
Marfa, Texas to revolutionary Cuba, from literal ghosts to implicit ones, the
characters are entirely singular and individually rewarding, yet
somehow-as the title suggests-somehow feel quietly present in each subsequent
narrative. Though spirits and spells indeed appear in these pages, Fuentes
doesn't simply write about magic in this collection; she's created it."
-Xhenet Aliu, author of Brass and Domesticated Wild Things, and Other
Stories "The stories in Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes' Are We Ever Our Own will haunt
readers long after they've finished. And perhaps that's the point. Inventive,
hallucinatory, chilling, and globe-spanning, this collection commands
attention."
-Chantel Acevedo, author of The
Distant Marvels
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Rochester
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 201 mm
Width: 132 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
249 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-950774-61-6 (9781950774616)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes is the author of Are We Ever Our Own, winner of the BOA Short Fiction Prize, and the novel The Sleeping World (Touchstone-Simon & Schuster, 2016). She has received fellowships from Hedgebrook, Willapa Bay Artists in Residency, Yaddo, the Millay Colony, Lighthouse Works, and the Blue Mountain Center. Her work has appeared in New England Review, The Common, One Story, Cosmonauts Avenue, Slice, Pank, NANO Fiction, Western Humanities Review, and elsewhere. She holds a BA from Brown University, an MFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. She grew up in a Cuban-Irish-American family in Wisconsin. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland where she teaches creative writing and Latinx literature.