Kali Fajardo-Anstine

I thought this story was marvelous. I appreciated the depth of research that Kali Farjardo-Anstine clearly did on the history of Denver and Colorado. I knew that the KKK had been active in 1920s and 30s, and that former mayors were in fact members of the Klan, but the way the author describes the racist and xenophobic atmosphere of Denver in those times, really brings it to vivid and brutal life, in a way that feels like it was pulled from old newspapers and other ephemera from that time show more (which it almost certainly was).

The heart of this story were the women; all so vibrant, strong, flawed, and so very human. The men were peripheral, just supporting actors to their more fully developed female counterparts. Some have mentioned this in their critiques, but I loved it and also believe that the author wrote them this way on purpose. The book is named Woman of Light after all, not Man of Light.

I'm giving this book a 4 because I really did find myself wrapped up and invested in the characters. The time travel aspect was a bit inconsistent, in that sometimes it worked, and other times I felt like I was being interrupted just as the story was getting good. I also would've wished for a more conclusive ending, with some of the various plot threads and side stories wrapped up, but life often leaves many things unfinished. show less

The Publisher Says: A dazzling epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West, from the author of the National Book Award Finalist Sabrina & Corina

“There is one every generation—a seer who keeps the stories.”

Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz show more navigates 1930’s Denver on her own, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors’ origins, how her family flourished and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.

Written in Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s singular voice, the wildly entertaining and complex lives of the Lopez family fill the pages of this multigenerational western saga. Woman of Light is a transfixing novel about survival, family secrets, and love, filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, all of whom are just as special, memorable, and complicated as our beloved heroine, Luz.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: What happens when a determined woman meets a wall of silence? When we're very lucky, and she's very lucky, a writer comes on the scene and becomes An Author. That's the trajectory of Author Fajardo-Anstine. Sabrina & Corina, her literary debut, was a collection of stories and...it went nowhere. It wasn't a flop. It was invisible.

Bemoaning her fate being beneath the bearer of such stories to the world, she got up and made a book tour for herself...got the grassroots interested in the book...and got nominated for a National Book Award. For a debut collection of stories! Grassroots support is crucial, but let's be honest: You gotta have the chops to get anywhere after that.

And here we are, talking about Author Fajardo-Anstine's debut novel, a real gift of a tale about people whose American history goes much deeper than the majority of those reading this blog's history goes. It's not a linear, "in 1868 this unusual thing happened, in 1879 the next unusual thing happened..." narrative strategy. Luz, our literal Woman of Light, is also our PoV character. Everything that happens to her is grounded, contextualized, in her family's...her people's...history. It's a scary thing to think of taking on this much underknown history, and Author Fajardo-Anstine is up to the task. You, the reader, won't get it spoon-fed to you. I won't make it sound like work, or an assignment, but it is not effortless storytime fiction.

That said, the stories are wonderfully deeply told, limned against a background not unfamiliar today. It's not like the USA is racism-free. It's not like it was in earlier times, in that it's still regarded as a more fringe belief than it was in, for example, Luz's 1933 Denver. But the KKK is recrudescing under new names, the old hate gets poured into new bottles and different labels get slapped on them. Make no mistake, it is still less pervasive than the world Luz, her cousin Lizette, her brother the hapless Diego, and company all face every time they open the door.

It's Diego, and David, and frankly all the men in the book, that brought an inevitable fifth star off the rating. I wanted to feel immersed in a time and a place, and was; but the caddish men, not a decent soul among them, made me think "oh, twenty-first century feminism goggles are on, so I (sadly a Y-chromosome bearing person) am in for a drubbing." There are white people who will feel left out, too, but that comes with the story and is, frankly, the point...white folks don't need to be centered, or even there on the periphery, if the author telling the story of a time and place doesn't want them to be. Men, though? She's got those. And does she unload on them. Spineless and useless; abusive and cruel; just flat evil (as anyone who joins the KKK in fact was).

I don't think it was necessary, and it smacks of score-settling. So there went star #5.

Still think it's time to rev up your book club's drinks tray, y'all, and get this terrific, well-told, challenging, and deeply satisfyingly immersive read on the coffee table. show less

This is yet another exception to my avoidance of short story collections; thanks to Ted Chiang and others, the exceptions threaten to outnumber the rule.

These are vividly realistic stories about Latina women living in Denver and southern Colorado, dealing with racism and poverty, and accompanying issues like drug addiction. They're not really "downers"; there's hope and persistence and resistance. In one, Josie becomes a mother at 16, and may no longer be able to handle raising now 10 year show more old Sierra. In the title story, one cousin, Sabrina, is spectacularly beautiful and has high hopes, but the lack of opportunities drive her to drugs and promiscuity. Corina, plainer, tries to keep her cousin from completely going off the rails, while going to beauty school and trying to establish her own life. Other stories show the holes in our supposed social safety nets. In one, when a mother contracts breast cancer, there are no good options. Her husband's insurance doesn't cover worthwhile treatments, and he can't leave his job to help care for her. What they end up doing is a sad commentary on healthcare in this country.

This excellent collection is piercing, but never unhopeful. show less

This is a family saga beginning at the end of the nineteenth century and continuing into the Great Depression. It follows a large family of Latino and Indigenous Americans living in western New Mexico and Colorado. They're sharp-shooters and snake charmers and fortune tellers, laundry women and miners, all trying to make their way in a largely hostile world. But they are, for the most part, resilient and busy falling in love, making lives and enjoying what they have.

There are a lot of strong show more characters, all vying for attention here, and the novel jumps around the timeline with abandon. But Fajardo-Anstine's first book, [Sabrina and Corina], was a fantastic collection of short stories, so even when I wasn't sure where or when we were at the start of a new chapter, each section worked so well on its own; it didn't matter if I could keep track of the relationships. I don't generally like family sagas, but this was a banger. show less