Where There Was Fire by John Manuel Arias

Where There Was Fire
by John Manuel Arias
A lush and lyrical debut novel about a Costa Rican family wrestling with
a deadly secret, from rising literary star John Manuel Arias
Costa Rica, 1968.When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Companya's
most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up,
the future of Teresa Cepeda Valverdea's family is changed forever.
Now, twenty-seven years later, Teresa and her daughter Lyra are still picking
up the pieces. Lyra wants nothing to do with Teresa, but is desperate to find
out what happened to her family that fateful night. Teresa, haunted by a
missing husband and the bitter ghost of her mother, Amarga, is unable to
reconcile the past. What unfolds is a story of a mother and daughter trying to
forgive what they do not yet understand, and the mystery at the heart of one
familya's rupture, steeped in machismo, jealousy, labor uprisings, and the
havoc wreaked by banana plantations in Central America.
Brimming with ancestral spirits, omens, and the anthropomorphic forces of
nature, John Manuel Arias weaves a brilliant tapestry of love, loss, secrets,
and redemption.
A haunting, operatic saga of family, history and place. Where There Was
Fire beautifully braids love, lust, magic and the destructive power of man to
wondrous and, at times, heartbreaking effect. Arias has createdan utterly
original, unforgettable tale of family that will sear a place in the reader's
soul." - Xochitl Gonzalez, bestselling author of Olga Dies (...)

John Manuel Arias is a queer, Costa Rican American poet and writer. He is a
Canto Mundo fellow & alumnus of the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop.
His prose and poetry have been published in PANK, The Rumpus, F(r)iction,
Joyland Magazine, and Akashic Books. He has lived in Washington D.C.,
Brooklyn New York, and in San JosA©, Costa Rica with his grandmother and
four ghosts. Where There Was Fire is his first novel.

Flatiron Books
On Sale: Sep 19/23
6.12 x 9.25 • 288 pages
Includes front matter family tree
9781250817389 • $38.99 • CL - With dust jacket
Fiction / Literary