**Winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize
"[A] sparkling debut collectionβ¦features dreamers and schemers whose lives pulsate with wild hopes, hard luck, stunning secrets, and saving grace." βElle**
With intensity and emotional precision, Kirstin Valdez Quade's unforgettable stories plunge us into the fierce, troubled hearts of characters defined by the desire to escape the past or else to plumb its depths. The deadbeat father of a pregnant teenager tries to transform his life by playing the role of Jesus in a bloody penitential Passion. A young man discovers that his estranged father and a boa constrictor have been squatting in his grandmotherβs empty house. A lonely retiree new to Santa Fe becomes obsessed with her housekeeper. One girl attempts to uncover the mystery of her cousin's violent past, while another young woman finds herself at an impasse when she is asked to hear her priest's confession.
Always hopeful, these stories chart the passions and obligations of family life, exploring themes of race, class, and coming-of-age, as Quade's characters protect, betray, wound, undermine, bolster, define, and, ultimately, save each other.
**
From School Library Journal
Though not all of these 10 short stories are equal in their teen appeal, those that have it are clever and surprising. "Jubilee," for example, concerns two neighbor girls home from Stanford for the summer. Parker, the oldest, is the daughter of a ranch owner, while scholarship student Andrea's father is a worker on the ranch. Andrea has a chip on her shoulder about Parker's wealth that spills over in ugly, unexpected ways. In the title story, teenage Frances rides her father's bus to the downtown fiesta but gets in over her head when she flirts with a "painter." Each of the stories is set in a rural New Mexicoβa setting not often represented in fiction. Most feature characters with unrelenting hubris being forced to examine their often prejudiced attitudes toward others. The role of religion is examined in three different stories. In "The Five Wounds," Amadeo is hoping to play the role of Jesus in this year's Good Friday celebration when his foul-mouthed, pregnant teenage daughter arrives on his doorstep. In "Family Reunion," Claire goes on vacation with her Mormon neighbors, but Mormonism isn't what she thought it might be. Finally, in "Ordinary Sins," a woman works at a rectory and gets drawn into a conflict between the beloved older priest and the strict newcomer. This work offers dark and often hopeless but thoughtful portrayals of working class New Mexicans from different perspectives. VERDICT Like many anthologies, pick and choose the stories to share/read/teach.βJamie Watson, Baltimore County Public Library
Review
βRemarkable. . . . In almost every story, Quade goes for vivid spectacle and theatrical plot twists . . . But Quade focuses just as intensely on the subtler customs, cruelties, kindnesses, and skewed alliances of precarious family life.β (Ann Hulbert - The Atlantic)
βFresh, funnyβ¦. A gifted storyteller with an eye for quirky, compelling detailβ¦. A poised and polished debut.β (Jenny Shank - Dallas Morning News)
β[Lives] up to even the loftiest of expectations.β (Bustle (Spring Break Recommended Read))
βA fantastic writer, both stylish and sagacious. The stories here are taut and tense, while at the same time morally complicated, which is to say they cut sharp and they cut deep. . . . A book of extraordinary virtuosity.β (Justin Torres)
βA stunning debut. With unflinching honesty and relentless compassion, Kirstin Valdez Quade conjures characters that are uncannily alive. Vibrant, incisive, and wickedly funny, Night at the Fiestas announces the arrival of a fiercely original new voice.β (Jennifer duBois)
βA writer of extraordinary perception, a sharp-eyed truth-teller who renders her characters and the landscapes they inhabit with exquisite care. Each of these marvelous stories illuminates the messy, tender, unexplored borderland inside us all where our finest virtues bleed into our worst faults. A brilliant debut.β (Maggie Shipstead)