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And I’ll Take Out Your Eyes
A Novel
Description
Cría cuervos y te sacaran los ojos: Raise crows and they will take out your eyes.
A boy wakes up with a knife in his hand. It’s the early ’90s in Stockton, CA, when Christian is caught sleepwalking in the kitchen by his family—the beginning of a curse unleashed by an aunt. To save Christian and the family from the curse, the family seeks out a curandero who promises salvation, but at a price Christian wishes he didn’t have to pay.
As Christian grows up the curse follows him. His father emotionally and physically torments him, his mother’s health spirals, his relationship with his brother deteriorates; nothing goes his way. Christian finds solace in a group of friends, bonded together by the sufferings that plague their community. As the childhood chaos of ripping and running in order to survive breaks way to an adolescence beyond his local neighborhood and a lifeline in the form of writing, Christian must decide: be consumed and enact the same violence that has plagued him, or break the cycle, once and for all.
And I’ll Take Out Your Eyes is a kaleidoscopic exploration of the power of memory and the curses we inherit from our family, and how to overcome them. Told in a voice that is clear and unflinching, this is ultimately a story of redemption.
A boy wakes up with a knife in his hand. It’s the early ’90s in Stockton, CA, when Christian is caught sleepwalking in the kitchen by his family—the beginning of a curse unleashed by an aunt. To save Christian and the family from the curse, the family seeks out a curandero who promises salvation, but at a price Christian wishes he didn’t have to pay.
As Christian grows up the curse follows him. His father emotionally and physically torments him, his mother’s health spirals, his relationship with his brother deteriorates; nothing goes his way. Christian finds solace in a group of friends, bonded together by the sufferings that plague their community. As the childhood chaos of ripping and running in order to survive breaks way to an adolescence beyond his local neighborhood and a lifeline in the form of writing, Christian must decide: be consumed and enact the same violence that has plagued him, or break the cycle, once and for all.
And I’ll Take Out Your Eyes is a kaleidoscopic exploration of the power of memory and the curses we inherit from our family, and how to overcome them. Told in a voice that is clear and unflinching, this is ultimately a story of redemption.
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Praise
A Publishers Lunch Buzz Book
"An insultingly good debut from a writer I'll follow forever. And I'll Take Out Your Eyes is
a poetic gut punch that heals just as much as it haunts."
—Ruth Madievsky, author of All-Night Pharmacy
a poetic gut punch that heals just as much as it haunts."
—Ruth Madievsky, author of All-Night Pharmacy
"Poetic, defiant, and unflinching, And I'll Take Out Your Eyes is incendiary from the opening paragraph, and never relents. A.M. Sosa is a young writer to watch."
—Jonathan Evison, author of Lawn Boy and The Heart of Winter
“And I’ll Take Out Your Eyes introduces an urgent new voice that fearlessly captures a coming-of-age shaped by fury and fear. At once brutal, funny, harrowing, and tender, A.M. Sosa’s searing debut reminds us why fiction still matters, why it can be lifesaving.”
—Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, author of Likes and Madeleine Is Sleeping
"And I'll Take Out Your Eyes is a kaleidoscopic wonder of a debut. Never boring, A.M. Sosa seems somehow capable of pulling off any form or point of view. Any sentence might be as explosive, as tender, as breathless, as surprising as life. And there is so much life in this book. If nothing else, it is rare to find a novel as alive as this one. Sosa has arrived with a cannon shot."
—Matthew Salesses, author of Craft in the Real World and The Sense of Wonder
"Nightmarish and mesmerizing, And I'll Take Out Your Eyes deftly tempers the bloodthirst of youth with the gravitas of trauma, plunging us into all the grim chasms of becoming. By exhuming the borders between family and selfhood, nations and heritage, superstitions and raw perseverance, A.M. Sosa has leveled a beacon of urgent, unflinching light on the experience—and casualties—of estrangement. No more looking away. This novel entranced me, broke me, and has haunted me since."
—Jakob Guanzon, author of Abundance