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.
Johnny Rey Diaz navigates these short stories with touching empathy. He performs the lived experiences of Salvadorans and the larger Latin American diaspora in ways both fascinating and challenging. Reyes, Jr's, storytelling starts conventionally but soon evolves into darker themes that capture the impact of late capitalism, which is characterized, in part, by the drive to replace migrant labor wi
