There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven: Stories [Hardcover]

Longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist for The Story Prize Finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction Finalist for the California Book Award Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the New American Voices Award

Ruben Reyes Jr. is a wonder.  H?ctor Tobar

An electrifying debut speculative fiction 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 hes a famous reggaet?n star. An aging abuela slowly morphs into a marionette puppet. A struggling academic discovers the horrifying cost of becoming a Self-Made Man.

InThere Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, Ruben Reyes Jr. conjures strange, dreamlike, and surreal 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 choiceschoices 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 Heavensubverts everything we think we know about migration and its consequences, capturing what it means to take up a new lifewhether willfully or forcedwith 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.

“Ruben Reyes Jr. pulls off what can only be described as an exquisite—and heartbreaking—magic trick… you find yourself in the hands of a tlCC