From the author of There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, this piercing, genre-bending debut follows two families in alternative timelines of the Salvadoran civil war in a stunning exploration of displacement, the mechanisms of fate, the gravity of the past, and the endurance of love.
Cambridge, 2018. Ana and Luis’s relationship is on the rocks, despite their many similarities, including mothers that both fled El Salvador during the war. In her search for answers, Ana uses The Defractor, an experimental device that allows users to peek into alternate versions of their lives. What she sees leads her and Luis on a quest through Havana and San Salvador to uncover the family histories they are desperate to know, eager to learn if what might have been can fix what is.
Havana, 1978. The Salvadoran war is brewing, and Neto, a young revolutionary with a knack for forging government papers, meets Rafael at a meeting for the People’s Revolutionary Army. The two form an intense and forbidden love, shedding their fake names and revealing themselves to each other inside the covert world of their activism. When their work separates them, they begin to exchange weekly letters, but soon, as the devastating war rages on, forces beyond their control threaten to pull them apart forever.
‘Ruben Reyes Jr. pulls off what can only be described as an exquisite – and heartbreaking – magic trick . . . you find yourself in the hands of a terrifically talented storyteller’ – Washington Post
‘Shot through with genuine pathos and astute social commentary . . . Reyes shifts effortlessly from absurdism to satire to sci-fi [and his] dynamic tales herald the arrival of a promising new talent’ – Publishers Weekly
‘Haunting, tender, and profound . . . Tethered to historical fact and enlivened by speculative elements, Reyes’ fiction brings into focus the troubling legacies that stalk so many Central American nations’ – Kirkus Reviews
‘In [his] rich, lively and imaginative collection, Reyes’ presents the richness of the American Latine and immigrant experience, not as we are perceived, but as we know and recognise ourselves to be. In Reyes’ hands, robots, alternative colonial histories, and dream sequences are more than storytelling devices. They are as real and vivid as the grief, abandoned love and homelands these characters are trying to reconcile with their American realities. These are stories to treasure and ponder, long after the last page has been turned.’ – Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of OLGA DIES DREAMING
‘Capturing migrations domestic, international, and even interplanetary, Ruben Reyes Jr.’s debut depicts the astronomic costs so many incur in attempting to start anew, as well as the faith required to believe that a better tomorrow is possible. Wildly funny, so damn creative, and inspiring all the feels, Reyes and his work are out of this world.’ – Mateo Askaripour, New York Times bestselling author of BLACK BUCK
‘Ruben Reyes Jr. has written Salvadorans into every single corner of the imagination. Fearless, imaginative, revolutionary. Ruben Reyes Jr. is a revelation.’ – Javier Zamora, New York Times bestselling author of SOLITO
‘Ruben Reyes Jr. is one of the most imaginative writers I’ve read in some time . . . Reyes Jr.’s writing is insightful and daring, full of heart and intelligence’ – Alejandro Varela, author of TOWN OF BABYLON
Ruben Reyes Jr. is the son of two Salvadoran immigrants. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Harvard College. His writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, AGNI, BOMB Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, LitHub, and other publications. His debut story collection, There is a Rio Grande in Heaven, was a finalist for The Story Prize, and longlisted for the the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the New American Voices Award. Originally from Southern California, he lives in Queens. Archive of Unknown Universes is his first novel.