Archive of Unknown Universes
21 August 2025Imprint: Footnote Press
Synopsis
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.
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.
Details
21 August 2025288 pages
9781804442739Imprint: Footnote Press
Reviews
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 storytellerWashington 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 talentPublishers 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 nationsKirkus 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