WOMAN OF LIGHT

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.