Marcela Fuentes’ Malas is the latest pick for the Good Morning America book club.
Fuentes’ debut novel, published Tuesday by Viking, tells the story of two cursed women living in a Texas-Mexico border town, one in 1951 and the other in 1994. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus praised the book as “a vibrant portrait of two strong women and their mixed feelings about home.”
GMA contributor Robin Arzón announced the novel’s selection on the morning show, saying, “If you love music, mystery, and adventure, look no further than [this] gripping page-turner that’s an homage to rich Tejano culture and strong women.”
Arzón spoke with Fuentes in a pre-taped segment. “Malastranslates to ‘bad girls,’” Fuentes explained. “We have these two braided narratives that are going to collide in a kind of train wreck of destiny.”
Arzón asked Fuentes what inspired her to create characters that are imperfect and not “prim” and “proper.”
“Something that I always felt was that there was this kind of confining idea of what it means to be a woman, and what if we’re just human beings, and we don’t have to conform to something to be a good person or a bad person?” Fuentes said. “What if we just are allowed to just be women and be people?”
Fuentes talked about growing up in South Texas, where her novel is set.
“If I see my small hometown on the news, it’s going to be something horrible,” she said. “And so a lot of my inspiration was just really loving this place as a community, and to kind of give it a humanity that we don’t often see.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
