Eating Ashes

The grieving unnamed narrator of Mexican writer Navarro’s spellbinding U.S. debut ruminates on the effects of migration. She and her younger brother, Diego, are raised by their grandparents in Mexico while their mother works as a cleaner in Spain. Nine years later, they reunite with their mother in Madrid, where a teenaged Diego struggles to fit in at his new school while the narrator pieces together a living as a babysitter. Eventually, she flees to Barcelona to start a new life, toiling as a live-in caregiver, cleaner, and delivery person while attempting to learn Catalan and English. When Diego visits her in Barcelona, she sees signs of trouble—he’s failing his classes, and he steals some of her money. Back in Madrid, he kills himself by jumping from the family’s apartment window. Afterward, the narrator considers what may have pushed him to suicide and visits the scene of his death, touching the pavement in search of a sign of him and imagining him “breaking like a musical instrument” and continuing on “like music, which only exists when it’s played or sung.” All the while, she grapples with her own fractured connections to those around her, wondering if her attempt to join a Barcelona hotel union will do any good. Navarro crafts a realistic depiction of memory’s free association, as her narrator bounces like a pinball from one idea to the next. This sorrowful novel teems with life. Agent: Sandra Pareja, Massie McQuilkin & Altman. (Jan.)