Indies Introduce

Fiction

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  Olga Dies Dreaming, Xochitl Gonzalez
  Flatiron Books, 9781250786173, January 11, 2022 (Fiction)
  

  “Get ready to root for Olga! I absolutely loved this book. It beautifully captures the Puerto Rican experience with humor and bravery. It felt like home and when a book feels like home, I can't help but invite everyone over.”

  —Rosa Hernandez, Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, WA
  
  

  “Set in 2017 New York City in the months leading up to Hurricane Maria, Olga Dies Dreaming is a dazzling debut from a powerful writer that weaves a vivid family story into a rich tapestry of wealth, class, race, and diaspora. It is wise and warm and witty, observing its characters’ failures and triumphs without sentimentality, bitterness, or cynicism, and it shifts from the personal to the political and back again with ease. Xochitl Gonzalez writes exquisitely about the immigrant experience, the American Dream, and community action, and she has crafted a story that celebrates hope, healing, accountability, and the everyday revolutions we must continually fight for our own self-worth. Olga Dies Dreaming is a stunning debut, one that will linger long after the book is closed, and — hopefully — throughout the years. Pa’lante. Siempre pa’lante.”

  —Rebecca Speas, One More Page Books, Arlington, VA
  

   

  “With wit and tenderness, Xochitl Gonzalez dissects the thorny crossroads of family, unconditional love, identity, and home in her debut novel Olga Dies Dreaming. Gonzalez doesn’t flinch from tackling topics of colonialism, gentrification, and capitalism, and the ways these mark marginalized communities in unimaginable ways. But she does so with warmth and humor. Olga Dies Dreaming is a remarkable debut novel about loss, love, family, politics, and the people and places we call home.”

  —Michelle Malonzo, Changing Hands, Tempe, AZ

   

  “I loved this funny, sharp, tender, and big-hearted novel. Olga is a wedding planner extraordinaire to the Manhattan elite, and her brother, Pedro, serves as congressman for their district in Brooklyn. These two seemingly happy siblings wrestle with dark family secrets brought to the surface when their mother who abandoned them in their youth crashes back into their lives in the aftermath of the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico's history.”

  —Cody Morrison, Square Books, Oxford, MS

   

  “Olga Dies Dreaming is a story of family, nostalgia, homecoming, and the ties that unite communities even in the face of unimaginable fracturing. Through dazzling prose and emotional attention, Xochitl Gonzalez tells the story of Olga and her brother: a wedding planner and congressman, both home-grown successes with Puerto Rican roots who seemingly have it all. And, yet, their stories are not theirs alone, and family secrets, social ambition, and the pressure to hold it all together come to test them both as they face the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Gripping and telling, Gonzalez’s story is one that brings voice to the experience of finding oneself (and community) amidst the storm.”

  —Clancey D’Isa, Seminary Co-op Bookstores, Chicago, IL