Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
This stunningly original collection of stories illuminates a spectrum of Latinx, Chicanx, and immigrant women's voices. In confrontations with fraught matrilineal lines, absent or abusive fathers, and the effects of historical violence, these women and girls navigate a male-dominated world where they rely on a resilient mujer network to get them through sometimes supernatural obstacles.
In visceral, embodied prose, Fragoza's imperfect characters are drawn with an authentic, sympathetic tenderness as they struggle against circumstances and conditions designed to defeat them. A young woman returns home from college, only to pick up exactly where she left off: a smart girl in a rundown town with no future. A mother reflects on the pain and pleasures of being inexorably consumed by her small daughter, whose penchant for ingesting grandma's letters has extended to taking bites of her actual flesh. A brother and sister watch anxiously as their distraught mother takes an ax to their old furniture, and then to the backyard fence, until finally she attacks the family's beloved lime tree. Victories are excavated from the rubble of personal hardship, and women's wisdom is brutally forged from the violence of history that continues to unfold on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
Synopsis
In gritty, sometimes fantastical stories about Latinx life, women challenge feminine stereotypes and make sense of fractured family histories.
This stunningly original collection of stories illuminates a spectrum of Latinx, Chicanx, and immigrant women's voices. In confrontations with fraught matrilineal lines, absent or abusive fathers, and the effects of historical violence, these women and girls navigate a male-dominated world where they rely on a resilient mujer network to get them through sometimes supernatural obstacles.
In visceral, embodied prose, Fragoza's imperfect characters are drawn with an authentic, sympathetic tenderness as they struggle against circumstances and conditions designed to defeat them. A young woman returns home from college, only to pick up exactly where she left off: a smart girl in a rundown town with no future. A mother reflects on the pain and pleasures of being inexorably consumed by her small daughter, whose penchant for ingesting grandma's letters has extended to taking bites of her actual flesh. A brother and sister watch anxiously as their distraught mother takes an ax to their old furniture, and then to the backyard fence, until finally she attacks the family's beloved lime tree. Victories are excavated from the rubble of personal hardship, and women's wisdom is brutally forged from the violence of history that continues to unfold on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
"Carribean Fragoza goes deep. This book makes central the lives of women, whether sourced locally or rooted in Mexico, whether alive or dead to the world, surrealistic or hyper realistic, in the flesh or as spirits centuries old. This is storytelling that astonishes, passing through industrialized lives of women like gamma rays or cosmic rays--and I was not only astonished, I was moved. Kafka said, 'A book must be an axe for the frozen sea that is within us.' Be careful how you heft this book--it's sharp as obsidian, this axe."--Sesshu Foster, author of Atomik Aztex
Synopsis
In gritty, sometimes fantastical stories about Latinx life, women challenge feminine stereotypes and make sense of fractured family histories.
"In Carribean Fragoza's weirdly sweet short story collection Eat the Mouth that Feeds You, eyebrows are Sharpie-thin, children say I love you with axes, and dying is an adventure. Her Chicanx gothic tales root horror in the most terrifying of places, the family. The creepiest pockets of the Brown imagination are her playground. Eat the Mouth that Feeds You renders the feminine grotesque at its finest."--Myriam Gurba, author of Mean
This stunningly original collection of stories illuminates a spectrum of Latinx, Chicanx, and immigrant women's voices. In confrontations with fraught matrilineal lines, absent or abusive fathers, and the effects of historical violence, these women and girls navigate a male-dominated world where they rely on a resilient mujer network to get them through sometimes supernatural obstacles.
In visceral, embodied prose, Fragoza's imperfect characters are drawn with an authentic, sympathetic tenderness as they struggle against circumstances and conditions designed to defeat them. A young woman returns home from college, only to pick up exactly where she left off: a smart girl in a rundown town with no future. A mother reflects on the pain and pleasures of being inexorably consumed by her small daughter, whose penchant for ingesting grandma's letters has extended to taking bites of her actual flesh. A brother and sister watch anxiously as their distraught mother takes an ax to their old furniture, and then to the backyard fence, until finally she attacks the family's beloved lime tree. Victories are excavated from the rubble of personal hardship, and women's wisdom is brutally forged from the violence of history that continues to unfold on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
"Carribean Fragoza goes deep. This book makes central the lives of women, whether sourced locally or rooted in Mexico, whether alive or dead to the world, surrealistic or hyper realistic, in the flesh or as spirits centuries old. This is storytelling that astonishes, passing through industrialized lives of women like gamma rays or cosmic rays--and I was not only astonished, I was moved. Kafka said, 'A book must be an axe for the frozen sea that is within us.' Be careful how you heft this book--it's sharp as obsidian, this axe."--Sesshu Foster, author of Atomik Aztex
Synopsis
Excerpt from Eat the Mouth that Feeds You by Carribean Fragoza
"Lumberjack Mom"
That spring when the dormant roots and seeds started sprouting and our father stopped coming home, our mother took to the backyard with fervent urgency. Overnight, it seemed, all of the vegetation burst through the cracks, split the tile and cement, broke through the clay pots and tin cans. The grass spilled over the hedges, spilled over with despicable gusto. One morning, my brother and I woke up to find our breakfast already cold on the kitchen counter and our mother at work in the backyard crawling on her hands and knees, clawing out odd weeds with tiny flowers we'd never seen before. These burgeoned in tenacious clusters throughout the lawn. She dedicated hours to these new invaders, ripping them out from the grass like clumps of hair. Fistfuls of roots dangling dirt and squirming worms like freshly torn scalps still steaming. Our mother's face sweated and twisted under the sun. We watched her silently, heads butted together, from the kitchen window. We heard our sister call out from another window, Mom are you okay? Yes, mija. It's just hot, she answered wiping the sweat with the back of her bare hand.
The next day, we noticed she'd pulled out some gardening tools, small hand hoes and shears that she sharpened with a rock. We recognized the hand-sized, volcanic slab from our grandmother's house in Guadalajara from before she passed away. One of her prized possessions, our grandmother used it to sharpen her knives and shears sitting alone and in silence at the head of the table. My brother and I would sit in front of the TV and pretend not to watch her. She'd then retreat into the kitchen with her knives to perform mysterious domestic acts.
Our mother used her freshly sharpened tools to cut up the thick roots of unidentified plants that seemed to be waiting for the right time to reveal themselves. She didn't give them a chance. Eventually, we noticed that her favorite tool was a set of narrow-nosed pliers that she'd stab into the ground to extract even the most reluctant roots. She'd have to pull very hard, sometimes using both hands and the weight of her small body. Often it was the thin, spidery roots that were the most persistent and dug themselves in the deepest. Our mother, however, was very thorough, for any remnant would have sabotaged everything.
She also found tiny insects chewing at the leaves of potted plants that she'd personally grown out of cuttings or sprouted out of hand-planted seeds. She not only trimmed these contaminated leaves, but also ones that she suspected would soon become infected. At first she snipped gently at the herbs, only removing the diseased tops of the hierbabuena or oregano. Eventually, she cut them down into stubby brown stems, but left those roots intact.
Over the days, we watched her rove through the garden, flower bed to flower bed, potted plant to potted plant, and then cycle back methodically to rip out the invasive flower clusters that resurfaced in the grass. When she arrived at the lime tree's jagged shadow, she immediately got off her hands and knees. I thought she might have hunched after spending so much time curled over the ground or that she might need to steady her head if it was spinning with blood having been bent low beneath the sun. But she stood straight up before the lime tree as if measuring her height against it. She seemed taller than usual, as if she had height stored inside of her for certain occasions.
That night at supper, my siblings and I watched her swallow down a large glass of water with hardly a breath. And then she announced that she wanted to cut down the lime tree. My siblings and I looked at each other in silence. Although she'd never outright said so, we knew she'd wanted to cut it down for some time now. The tree is useless if it doesn't produce limes, she stated bluntly. And that, she pointed out, was our father's fault.
When we were very young, my parents had lovingly smuggled the seeds through customs in their luggage from Mexico. They wrapped the seeds in embroidered, perfumed handkerchiefs that they carefully packed into plastic baggies, rolled into socks and then stuffed into tennis shoes. They'd even planted a decoy in their suitcase so that when the customs people pulled out our candied fruits, and held up the sugared rolls to toss them ceremoniously in a trash bin, we feigned disappointment. Together, bound by complicity, we silently relished in our secret accomplishment, and held warmly in our hearts, the knowledge of those protected little seeds that were on their way to starting a new generation. Just like us.
Together, we watched the tree grow. We talked to it as one might talk to a baby, using sweet gibberish and tickling its leaves. We'd tell it what a lovely little tree it was, oh what a beautiful little tree growing so big so big now, bigger every day look at you, drink your water, stretch toward the sun, ay que bonito limoncito. We celebrated every one of its lime tree milestones, its first tender branch and its first flower. Its first lime was observed carefully and treasured. How we loved its sour fruit. She had loved it too.
Over time we allowed the tree to grow at its own whim, not having the heart to cut off a single one of its celebrated leaves or branches. However, instead of growing juicy limes that it ripened fully and dropped to the green grass for us to gather, it produced many tiny hard green limes that it guarded with a web of knotted branches and vicious thorns. The fruit would ripen deep inside the foliage and finally drop to rot on the ground. The interior growth was so dense and low that we could no longer reach under it to rescue the limes. The shade spoiled the ground, the lime acid spoiled it too. Most trees that spoil their own ground, roots deprived of essential nutrients, gradually suffocate themselves to death. Yet this one continued to grow, and we accepted it, cruel thorns and all.
Several years ago, our father made his last attempt at landscaping. My mother had asked him to prune the tree, said that it had been choking itself with its own gnarled branches. The tree needed maintenance and care like any other living being, my mother said to my father. He knew where she was headed with this, so he grabbed a machete from the garage and began chopping. He left the tree entirely bereft of its flowers, fruit and foliage, sparing only a large chewed-up grey bulk of thorny twigs and branches attached to its short trunk. It looked like a lopsided brain that had been cut up but remained alive, sputtering splintered thoughts through its spared masses. Its stem channeled all of the information into a mute ground. We wept for days, including our mother, and our father didn't come home until we shut up. Our poor tree. After several seasons, it eventually recovered its green leaves and grew back its barbed branches, and it even began to flower, but refused to give fruit altogether.
However, my siblings and I continued to watch the lime tree for signs. We studied the flower buds, careful not to disturb the fragile petals. We also refused to trim it, although in theory, we knew as always, that we should for the good of the tree. We loved it, perhaps as much as we loved each other, but didn't know how to care for it.
Since then, our mother avoided the tree, and blocked it from her field of vision, until now. Sitting at the dinner table, my brother and I said nothing in response to my mother's idea. However, we saw that our sister was carefully sifting through something in her mind. It shifted quietly in her head, trickling a little in one direction then another, moving it in a subtle bob that was neither a nod nor a shake. Through the silence, our mother's thoughts seemed to have moved on to a different subject as she finished off her meal in a few large bites and stood up to gather the dishes from the table. As she disappeared into the kitchen, we could still hear her chewing, crunching on her char-edged tortilla. I thought for an instant of her strong teeth, large for her small thin-lipped mouth. None of my siblings nor I had inherited teeth like that.
After several days, when she finished tearing bald spots into the lawn and taming the hedges, at least for a while, she noticed all of the crap we'd put out in the yard over the years and forgot about. Mostly defunct furniture we never got around to throwing away. She turned her instinct to an old drawer chest that we'd long abandoned in the far end of the yard and that was now rotting. From our usual window, my brother and I watched her break it up with her bare hands. A family of cats ran out, the kittens chased after their mother. She pushed the chest over on its side like a small whale carcass and pulled on the panels with the weight of her body. She tore out small rusted nails and staples that once held the pieces together. We could hear her grunt as she worked, clenching her teeth, the bone of her jaw gleaming. The veins in her forearms and hands, flooded with blood, bulged as she pulled and snapped off the rotting boards.
At dinnertime, we watched her bandaged fingers scoop food from her plate with bits of tortilla. Without looking at us, she said, I've been thinking about getting rid of some of the old furniture in the house. My brother and I were overjoyed, relieved. Our sister's head bobbed excitedly. There was plenty of old, not to mention ugly, furniture we'd insisted on getting rid of for ages. Most of it was furniture my parents bought on layaway when we were still babies. By now, their emotional value had worn out. Their laminated surfaces blistered and peeled, revealed the cheap particleboard underneath.
The next day, my mother showed us a new pile of what used to be a bookshelf. The following
Synopsis
In gritty, sometimes fantastical stories about Latinx life, women challenge feminine stereotypes and make sense of fractured family histories.
One of The Millions Most Anticipated Books of the Year
"Eat the Mouth that Feeds You renders the feminine grotesque at its finest."--Myriam Gurba, author of Mean
"Eat the Mouth that Feeds You will establish Fragoza as an essential and important new voice in American fiction."--H ctor Tobar, author of The Barbarian Nurseries
"The writing is sharp and unexpected, and full of vivid turns."--David Ulin, Books editor, Alta Magazine
In visceral, embodied prose, Fragoza's imperfect characters are drawn with a sympathetic tenderness as they struggle against circumstances and conditions designed to defeat them. A young woman returns home from college, only to pick up exactly where she left off: a smart girl in a rundown town with no future. A mother reflects on the pain and pleasures of being inexorably consumed by her small daughter, whose penchant for ingesting grandma's letters has extended to taking bites of her actual flesh. A brother and sister watch anxiously as their distraught mother takes an ax to their old furniture, and then to the backyard fence, until finally she attacks the family's beloved lime tree.
Victories are excavated from the rubble of personal hardship, and women's wisdom is brutally forged from the violence of history that continues to unfold on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
"Fragoza's surreal and gothic stories, focused on Latinx, Chicanx, and immigrant women's voices, are sure to surprise and move readers."--Zoe Ruiz, The Millions
"Fragoza's debut collection delivers expertly crafted tales of Latinx people trying to make sense of violent, dark realities. Magical realism and gothic horror make for effective stylistic entryways, as Fragoza seamlessly blurs the lines between the corporeal and the abstract."--Publishers Weekly
"The magic realism of Eat the Mouth that Feeds You is thoroughly worked into the fabric of the stories themselves . . . a wonderful debut."--Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World
"Fragoza's prose, a switchblade of a magical glow, cauterizes as it cuts. In a setting of barren citrus trees, poison-filled balloons, and stuccos haunted by the menace of the past, Eat the Mouth That Feeds You reinvents the sunny noir."--Salvador Plascencia, author of The People of Paper
"Carribean Fragoza goes deep. This book makes central the lives of women, whether sourced locally or rooted in Mexico, whether alive or dead to the world, surrealistic or hyper realistic, in the flesh or as spirits centuries old. This is storytelling that astonishes . . . "--Sesshu Foster, author of Atomik Aztex
"I felt this collection deep in my bones. Like the Chicanx women whose voices she centers, Carribean Fragoza's writing doesn't flinch. It is sharp and dream-like, tender-hearted and brutal, carved from the violence and resilience of generations past and present."--Natalia Sylvester, author of Everyone Knows You Go Home
Synopsis
One of the year's most anticipated books by The Millions, Colorlines and Remezcla
Carribean Fragoza's debut collection of stories reside in the domestic surreal, featuring an unusual gathering of Latinx and Chicanx voices from both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, and universes beyond.
"Eat the Mouth that Feeds You renders the feminine grotesque at its finest."--Myriam Gurba, author of Mean
"Eat the Mouth that Feeds You will establish Fragoza as an essential and important new voice in American fiction."--H ctor Tobar, author of The Barbarian Nurseries
"The writing is sharp and unexpected, and full of vivid turns."--David Ulin, Books editor, Alta Magazine
In visceral, embodied prose, Fragoza's imperfect characters are drawn with a sympathetic tenderness as they struggle against circumstances and conditions designed to defeat them. A young woman returns home from college, only to pick up exactly where she left off: a smart girl in a rundown town with no future. A mother reflects on the pain and pleasures of being inexorably consumed by her small daughter, whose penchant for ingesting grandma's letters has extended to taking bites of her actual flesh. A brother and sister watch anxiously as their distraught mother takes an ax to their old furniture, and then to the backyard fence, until finally she attacks the family's beloved lime tree.
Victories are excavated from the rubble of personal hardship, and women's wisdom is brutally forged from the violence of history that continues to unfold on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
"Fragoza's surreal and gothic stories, focused on Latinx, Chicanx, and immigrant women's voices, are sure to surprise and move readers."--Zoe Ruiz, The Millions
"Fragoza's debut collection delivers expertly crafted tales of Latinx people trying to make sense of violent, dark realities. Magical realism and gothic horror make for effective stylistic entryways, as Fragoza seamlessly blurs the lines between the corporeal and the abstract."--Publishers Weekly
"Fierce and feminist, Eat the Mouth That Feeds You is a soul-quaking literary force."--Dontan McPherson-Joseph, The Foreword
"The magic realism of Eat the Mouth that Feeds You is thoroughly worked into the fabric of the stories themselves . . . a wonderful debut."--Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World
"Fragoza's prose, a switchblade of a magical glow, cauterizes as it cuts. In a setting of barren citrus trees, poison-filled balloons, and stuccos haunted by the menace of the past, Eat the Mouth That Feeds You reinvents the sunny noir."--Salvador Plascencia, author of The People of Paper
"Carribean Fragoza goes deep. This book makes central the lives of women, whether sourced locally or rooted in Mexico, whether alive or dead to the world, surrealistic or hyper realistic, in the flesh or as spirits centuries old. This is storytelling that astonishes . . . "--Sesshu Foster, author of Atomik Aztex
"I felt this collection deep in my bones. Like the Chicanx women whose voices she centers, Carribean Fragoza's writing doesn't flinch. It is sharp and dream-like, tender-hearted and brutal, carved from the violence and resilience of generations past and present."--Natalia Sylvester, author of Everyone Knows You Go Home
Synopsis
One of the year's most anticipated books by The Millions, Colorlines and Remezcla
Recommended by the A.V. Club
Carribean Fragoza's debut collection of stories reside in the domestic surreal, featuring an unusual gathering of Latinx and Chicanx voices from both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, and universes beyond.
"Eat the Mouth that Feeds You renders the feminine grotesque at its finest."--Myriam Gurba, author of Mean
"Eat the Mouth that Feeds You will establish Fragoza as an essential and important new voice in American fiction."--H ctor Tobar, author of The Barbarian Nurseries
"The writing is sharp and unexpected, and full of vivid turns."--David Ulin, Alta Magazine
In visceral, embodied prose, Fragoza's imperfect characters are drawn with a sympathetic tenderness as they struggle against circumstances and conditions designed to defeat them. A young woman returns home from college, only to pick up exactly where she left off: a smart girl in a rundown town with no future. A mother reflects on the pain and pleasures of being inexorably consumed by her small daughter, whose penchant for ingesting grandma's letters has extended to taking bites of her actual flesh. A brother and sister watch anxiously as their distraught mother takes an ax to their old furniture, and then to the backyard fence, until finally she attacks the family's beloved lime tree.
Victories are excavated from the rubble of personal hardship, and women's wisdom is brutally forged from the violence of history that continues to unfold on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
"Fragoza's surreal and gothic stories, focused on Latinx, Chicanx, and immigrant women's voices, are sure to surprise and move readers."--Zoe Ruiz, The Millions
"This collection of visceral, often bone-chilling stories centers the liminal world of Latinos in Southern California while fraying reality at its edges. Full of horror and wonder."--Kirkus Reviews, *Starred Review
"Fragoza's debut collection delivers expertly crafted tales of Latinx people trying to make sense of violent, dark realities. Magical realism and gothic horror make for effective stylistic entryways, as Fragoza seamlessly blurs the lines between the corporeal and the abstract."--Publishers Weekly
"Fierce and feminist, Eat the Mouth That Feeds You is a soul-quaking literary force."--Dontan McPherson-Joseph, The Foreword, *Starred Review
"The magic realism of Eat the Mouth that Feeds You is thoroughly worked into the fabric of the stories themselves . . . a wonderful debut."--Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World
"Fragoza's prose, a switchblade of a magical glow, cauterizes as it cuts. In a setting of barren citrus trees, poison-filled balloons, and stuccos haunted by the menace of the past, Eat the Mouth That Feeds You reinvents the sunny noir."--Salvador Plascencia, author of The People of Paper
"I felt this collection deep in my bones. Like the Chicanx women whose voices she centers, Carribean Fragoza's writing doesn't flinch. It is sharp and dream-like, tender-hearted and brutal, carved from the violence and resilience of generations past and present."--Natalia Sylvester, author of Everyone Knows You Go Home
Synopsis
Carribean Fragoza's debut collection of stories reside in the domestic surreal, featuring an unusual gathering of Latinx and Chicanx voices from both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, and universes beyond.
"Eat the Mouth That Feeds You is an accomplished debut with language that has the potential to affect the reader on a visceral level, a rare and significant achievement from a forceful new voice in American literature."--Kali Fajardo-Anstine, New York Times Book Review, and author of Sabrina and Corina
Carribean Fragoza's imperfect characters are drawn with a sympathetic tenderness as they struggle against circumstances and conditions designed to defeat them. A young woman returns home from college, only to pick up exactly where she left off: a smart girl in a rundown town with no future. A mother reflects on the pain and pleasures of being inexorably consumed by her small daughter, whose penchant for ingesting grandma's letters has extended to taking bites of her actual flesh. A brother and sister watch anxiously as their distraught mother takes an ax to their old furniture, and then to the backyard fence, until finally she attacks the family's beloved lime tree.
Victories are excavated from the rubble of personal hardship, and women's wisdom is brutally forged from the violence of history that continues to unfold on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
"Eat the Mouth that Feeds You renders the feminine grotesque at its finest."--Myriam Gurba, author of Mean
"Eat the Mouth that Feeds You will establish Fragoza as an essential and important new voice in American fiction."--H ctor Tobar, author of The Barbarian Nurseries
"Fierce and feminist, Eat the Mouth That Feeds You is a soul-quaking literary force."--Dontan McPherson-Joseph, The Foreword, *Starred Review
". . . a work of power and a darkly brilliant talisman that enlarges in necessary ways the feminist, Latinx, and Chicanx canons."--Wendy Ortiz, Alta Magazine
"Fragoza's surreal and gothic stories, focused on Latinx, Chicanx, and immigrant women's voices, are sure to surprise and move readers."--Zoe Ruiz, The Millions
"This collection of visceral, often bone-chilling stories centers the liminal world of Latinos in Southern California while fraying reality at its edges. Full of horror and wonder."--Kirkus Reviews, *Starred Review
"Fragoza's debut collection delivers expertly crafted tales of Latinx people trying to make sense of violent, dark realities. Magical realism and gothic horror make for effective stylistic entryways, as Fragoza seamlessly blurs the lines between the corporeal and the abstract."--Publishers Weekly
"The magic realism of Eat the Mouth that Feeds You is thoroughly worked into the fabric of the stories themselves . . . a wonderful debut."--Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World
Synopsis
FINALIST for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection
Carribean Fragoza's debut collection of stories reside in the domestic surreal, featuring an unusual gathering of Latinx and Chicanx voices from both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, and universes beyond.
Carribean Fragoza's imperfect characters are drawn with a sympathetic tenderness as they struggle against circumstances and conditions designed to defeat them. A young woman returns home from college, only to pick up exactly where she left off: a smart girl in a rundown town with no future. A mother reflects on the pain and pleasures of being inexorably consumed by her small daughter, whose penchant for ingesting grandma's letters has extended to taking bites of her actual flesh. A brother and sister watch anxiously as their distraught mother takes an ax to their old furniture, and then to the backyard fence, until finally she attacks the family's beloved lime tree.
Victories are excavated from the rubble of personal hardship, and women's wisdom is brutally forged from the violence of history that continues to unfold on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
"Eat the Mouth That Feeds You is an accomplished debut with language that has the potential to affect the reader on a visceral level, a rare and significant achievement from a forceful new voice in American literature."--Kali Fajardo-Anstine, New York Times Book Review, and author of Sabrina and Corina
"Eat the Mouth that Feeds You renders the feminine grotesque at its finest."--Myriam Gurba, author of Mean
"Eat the Mouth that Feeds You will establish Fragoza as an essential and important new voice in American fiction."--H ctor Tobar, author of The Barbarian Nurseries
"Fierce and feminist, Eat the Mouth That Feeds You is a soul-quaking literary force."--Dontan McPherson-Joseph, The Foreword, *Starred Review
". . . a work of power and a darkly brilliant talisman that enlarges in necessary ways the feminist, Latinx, and Chicanx canons."--Wendy Ortiz, Alta Magazine
"Fragoza's surreal and gothic stories, focused on Latinx, Chicanx, and immigrant women's voices, are sure to surprise and move readers."--Zoe Ruiz, The Millions
"This collection of visceral, often bone-chilling stories centers the liminal world of Latinos in Southern California while fraying reality at its edges. Full of horror and wonder."--Kirkus Reviews, *Starred Review
"Fragoza's debut collection delivers expertly crafted tales of Latinx people trying to make sense of violent, dark realities. Magical realism and gothic horror make for effective stylistic entryways, as Fragoza seamlessly blurs the lines between the corporeal and the abstract."--Publishers Weekly
"The magic realism of Eat the Mouth that Feeds You is thoroughly worked into the fabric of the stories themselves . . . a wonderful debut."--Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World
Synopsis
WINNER OF THE WHITING AWARD
PEN AMERICA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST
One of the year's most anticipated books by The Millions, Colorlines and Remezcla, and recommended by the A.V. Club
Carribean Fragoza's debut collection of stories reside in the domestic surreal, featuring an unusual gathering of Latinx and Chicanx voices from both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, and universes beyond.
"Eat the Mouth That Feeds You is an accomplished debut with language that has the potential to affect the reader on a visceral level, a rare and significant achievement from a forceful new voice in American literature."--Kali Fajardo-Anstine, New York Times Book Review, and author of Sabrina and Corina
Carribean Fragoza's imperfect characters are drawn with a sympathetic tenderness as they struggle against circumstances and conditions designed to defeat them. A young woman returns home from college, only to pick up exactly where she left off: a smart girl in a rundown town with no future. A mother reflects on the pain and pleasures of being inexorably consumed by her small daughter, whose penchant for ingesting grandma's letters has extended to taking bites of her actual flesh. A brother and sister watch anxiously as their distraught mother takes an ax to their old furniture, and then to the backyard fence, until finally she attacks the family's beloved lime tree.
Victories are excavated from the rubble of personal hardship, and women's wisdom is brutally forged from the violence of history that continues to unfold on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
"Eat the Mouth that Feeds You renders the feminine grotesque at its finest."--Myriam Gurba, author of Mean
"Eat the Mouth that Feeds You will establish Fragoza as an essential and important new voice in American fiction."--H ctor Tobar, author of The Barbarian Nurseries
"Fierce and feminist, Eat the Mouth That Feeds You is a soul-quaking literary force."--Dontan McPherson-Joseph, The Foreword, *Starred Review
". . . a work of power and a darkly brilliant talisman that enlarges in necessary ways the feminist, Latinx, and Chicanx canons."--Wendy Ortiz, Alta Magazine
"Fragoza's surreal and gothic stories, focused on Latinx, Chicanx, and immigrant women's voices, are sure to surprise and move readers."--Zoe Ruiz, The Millions
"This collection of visceral, often bone-chilling stories centers the liminal world of Latinos in Southern California while fraying reality at its edges. Full of horror and wonder."--Kirkus Reviews, *Starred Review
"Fragoza's debut collection delivers expertly crafted tales of Latinx people trying to make sense of violent, dark realities. Magical realism and gothic horror make for effective stylistic entryways, as Fragoza seamlessly blurs the lines between the corporeal and the abstract."--Publishers Weekly
"The magic realism of Eat the Mouth that Feeds You is thoroughly worked into the fabric of the stories themselves . . . a wonderful debut."--Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World
Synopsis
WINNER OF THE WHITING AWARD
PEN AMERICA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST
Recommended by H ctor Tobar as an essential Los Angeles book in the New York Times.
Carribean
Fragoza's debut collection of stories reside in the domestic surreal,
featuring an unusual gathering of Latinx and Chicanx voices from both
sides of the U.S./Mexico border, and universes beyond.
"Eat the Mouth That Feeds You is an accomplished debut with language that has the potential to affect the reader on a visceral level, a rare and significant achievement from a forceful new voice in American literature."--Kali Fajardo-Anstine, New York Times Book Review, and author of Sabrina and Corina
Carribean
Fragoza's imperfect characters are drawn with a sympathetic tenderness
as they struggle against circumstances and conditions designed to defeat
them. A young woman returns home from college, only to pick up exactly
where she left off: a smart girl in a rundown town with no future. A
mother reflects on the pain and pleasures of being inexorably consumed
by her small daughter, whose penchant for ingesting grandma's letters
has extended to taking bites of her actual flesh. A brother and sister
watch anxiously as their distraught mother takes an ax to their old
furniture, and then to the backyard fence, until finally she attacks the
family's beloved lime tree.
Victories are excavated from the
rubble of personal hardship, and women's wisdom is brutally forged from
the violence of history that continues to unfold on both sides of the
US-Mexico border.
"Eat the Mouth that Feeds You renders the feminine grotesque at its finest."--Myriam Gurba, author of Mean
"Eat the Mouth that Feeds You will establish Fragoza as an essential and important new voice in American fiction."--H ctor Tobar, author of The Barbarian Nurseries
"Fierce and feminist, Eat the Mouth That Feeds You is a soul-quaking literary force."--Dontan McPherson-Joseph, The Foreword, *Starred Review
".
. . a work of power and a darkly brilliant talisman that enlarges in
necessary ways the feminist, Latinx, and Chicanx canons."--Wendy Ortiz, Alta Magazine
"Fragoza's
surreal and gothic stories, focused on Latinx, Chicanx, and immigrant
women's voices, are sure to surprise and move readers."--Zoe Ruiz, The Millions
"This
collection of visceral, often bone-chilling stories centers the liminal
world of Latinos in Southern California while fraying reality at its
edges. Full of horror and wonder."--Kirkus Reviews, *Starred Review
"Fragoza's
debut collection delivers expertly crafted tales of Latinx people
trying to make sense of violent, dark realities. Magical realism and
gothic horror make for effective stylistic entryways, as Fragoza
seamlessly blurs the lines between the corporeal and the abstract."--Publishers Weekly
"The magic realism of Eat the Mouth that Feeds You is thoroughly worked into the fabric of the stories themselves . . . a wonderful debut."--Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World