Woman of Light

January 1, 2022

A National Book Award, PEN/Bingham, and Story Prize finalist for her story collection Sabrina & Corina, Fajardo-Anstine traverses five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the U.S. West through the story of laundress and tea leaf reader Luz "Little Light" Lopez. Luz is left to fend for herself when her snake-charming, factory-worker brother is run out of 1930s Denver by a white mob, and she begins having visions of her nearby Indigenous homeland that leave her determined to save her ancestors' stories of flourishing despite oppression.

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April 1, 2022
The first novel from the author of the acclaimed story collection Sabrina and Corina (2019). Fajardo-Anstine, whose debut story collection was a finalist for many prizes, including the National Book Award, returns with a sprawling novel that follows five generations of a family of Mexican and Indigenous descent who live throughout the region now known as New Mexico and Colorado. At the heart is Luz, a teenager who reads tea leaves and discovers she has clairvoyant gifts. Abandoned by her parents, she and her older brother, Diego, make their way to Denver, where they live with their aunt Maria Josie and toil at jobs that barely cover the necessities. This is Depression-era Denver--which Fajardo-Anstine brings to life in sensory-rich details--and poverty, racism, and lack of opportunity rule. When Diego is badly beaten for romancing a White woman, Maria Josie sends him away, and 17-year-old Luz finds a more lucrative job working for a family friend, a young Greek American lawyer named David. With a nod to the Black Lives Matter movement, David's big case involves holding the city responsible for the brutal murder of a Mexican man by a cop. While the novel shines light on many deplorable events and attitudes from the U.S. past--land grabs, Klan marches, racism and segregation, brutal violence, sexism, and sexual double standards--it fails to fully illuminate Luz. She's a conduit to the past rather than a fully developed character with her own rich inner life. "True love isn't real, not for girls like us at least," her best friend reflects as Luz struggles with her desire for David, a womanizer, even though she's engaged to another man who loves her. "You know who the world treats worse than girls like us? Girls who are alone." The novel's rush to a happy ending means we don't get to see Luz wrestle with this impossible choice. A lush, immersive historical novel about the American Southwest that almost soars.

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April 18, 2022
Fajardo-Anstine’s impressive if underdeveloped debut novel (after the collection Sabrina & Corina) recounts the harrowing multigenerational adventures of a family originating in the “Lost Territory” of late 19th-century New Mexico and arriving in Denver by the 1930s. Depictions of the Lost Territory are vivid and well-informed. Pidre Lopez, the family’s anchor and a Puebloan Indigenous person, settles in Animas, Co., where he runs a Wild West show. The author describes it wonderfully: “a pistol crack, a long rifle’s pinging bullet, the exasperated neigh of a horse.” The narrative centers for the most part on seer Luz “Little Light” Lopez, who leads a hardscrabble life in 1930s Denver with her aunt Maria Josie and her brother, Diego, a snake charmer and womanizer. Luz entrances with visions dredged from reading tea leaves, but her gift of seeing often portends ominous circumstances such as racist violence from the KKK. Luz uses her family connections to become a secretary in a law office where she finds herself in a love triangle with her attorney boss and a young mariachi musician. Unfortunately, Fajardo-Anstine’s Denver lacks the same historical precision she gives to the Lost Territory portions, and is limited to a few plugged-in period details. Despite the uneven effort, it’s clear this author has talent to spare. Agent: Julia Masnik, Agency: Watkins/Loomis Agency. (June)Correction: An earlier version of this review misstated the location of a fictional town and misidentified a character’s nationality.

May 1, 2022
Luz is a young Chicana woman in 1930s Denver who reads tea leaves to help her aunt and brother Diego pay the rent. But when snake charmer Diego has to flee the city due to white violence, Luz asks old childhood crush David, now an upstart lawyer fighting for justice for marginalized communities, for a job. Their fiery chemistry wars with Luz's solid, kind love of horn player Avel. Meanwhile, Luz is being overwhelmed by her visions, which are growing stronger. Bears attack, orange groves scent the air. Luz glimpses her Indigenous homeland in the Lost Territory and unspools the tale of how her grandparents lost their land after the discovery of radium. While her story is the light at the center, the story of sharpshooter Simodecea and her enterprising Pidre is the real star, impossible to put down. Fajardo-Anstine's compelling writing paints a convincing portrait of a city in flux, haunted by white violence, and portrays a complex female friendship, a vivid love story (or three), and a story of family and memory in the American West.

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