The Town of Babylon
A Novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
A FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE
...
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE
...
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Klappentext zu „The Town of Babylon “
A FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTIONLONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022 Boston Globe, BuzzFeed, LitHub, Electric Literature, LGBTQ Reads, Latinx in Publishing
*Recommended by The New York Times*
In this contemporary debut novel an intimate portrait of queer, racial, and class identity Andrés, a gay Latinx professor, returns to his suburban hometown in the wake of his husband s infidelity. There he finds himself with no excuse not to attend his twenty-year high school reunion, and hesitantly begins to reconnect with people he used to call friends.
Over the next few weeks, while caring for his aging parents and navigating the neighborhood where he grew up, Andrés falls into old habits with friends he thought he d left behind. Before long, he unexpectedly becomes entangled with his first love and is forced to tend to past wounds.
Captivating and poignant; a modern coming-of-age story about the essential nature of community, The Town of Babylon is a page-turning novel about young love and a close examination of our social systems and the toll they take when they fail us.
Lese-Probe zu „The Town of Babylon “
1. SIDEWALKSThe alumni newsletter was sitting on my bed atop a small pyramid of neatly folded towels. It had a January postmark, but the glossy pamphlet remained crisp, no doubt due to my mother s care. On the back, among a scattershot of exclamatory text, it read, Mark your calendars, Class of 97! Reunion this July! Check St. Iggy s Facebook for updates! After mulling it over for a couple days, I visited St. Ignatius s alumni page this afternoon.
THE DAY HAS ARRIVED!!! 7 p.m. UNTIL ***WHENEVER***(JOE S RISTORANTE CLOSES AT 11 p.m., BUT DRINKS AT MCCLAIN SPUB & LOUNGE AFTER!!! LOL. YOLO! RSVP ASAP.)
I endeavor in life never to be anything more than defensively prejudiced certainly not haughty but this sort of unbridled use of capital letters andacronyms should have been omen enough to keep me home.
Over the last twenty years, these reunions had fleeted through my mind on occasion, the way I might envision a free fall or planes crashing into build-ings, which is to say briefly and, at times, with a shudder. I feared, in those moments, the possibility of reviving the past, of slipping irretrievably into
its grasp lamenting, obsessing. Something akin to speaking aloud a long-held secret on the verge of being forgotten. Better left forgotten. In a matter of minutes, all of this will change. Twenty years of abstention, of keeping the past where it belongs, will come to an end.
To complicate matters, I hadn t packed anything appropriate to wear. Is there a standard attire for this sort of occasion? How does one dress fortheir past? More specifically, a past inside of a present-day Italian restaurant established in 1975, and since remodeled four times, once by each new
owner Italian, Italian American, Puerto Rican, and most recently an immigrant from Kerala. The communist state of India, Kerala is arguably the healthiest and happiest region in the subcontinent. A state whose successes never seem to appear amid the popular images of
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Indian poverty, Indian elephants, Indian river-bathing, and Indian yogis. I know very little about India, but if I hadn t just mentioned this about Kerala, I d have been as remiss as everyone else.
Joe s, the Italian restaurant, is six unformed, halfway-harrowing blocks from my parents home, the home of my youth. Six city blocks aren t much by way of distance. In the city, every block is a microvillage worthy of recognition. Together, six blocks might constitute an entire neighborhood,
possibly two, each with its own abiding culture. Here in the suburbs, however, the block is a nearly inconsequential unit of measurement. Here, all movement is coordinate based: the corner of Main and East 6th or behind the Friendly s or you know, the old yellow house with the POW flag? Distance is also measured in time: twelve minutes door to door or twenty-five minutes without traffic or I did it in under an hour cuz there were no cops. And there is no minimum distance for traveling by car. No one walks anywhere, at any time especially if the stretch of land in question is a six-lane commercial corridor flankedby incomplete sidewalks and a coarse layer of crushed gravel whose low, Wild-West plumes of gray dust materialize at each step.
The people in the cars zooming past me, if they have taken notice, assume I m poor, homeless, high, or here illegally, and likely all of the above. If they ve given me a closer look fitted, dark green slacks; summery white linen long-sleeve button-down shirt open somewhat seductively to mid-sternum; brown skin they might be confused. They might be telling themselves I m lost or stranded. In their defense, I am the sole person standing on this narrow ledge of pseudo-sidewalk, which ends in about fifty feet. From here,
Joe s, the Italian restaurant, is six unformed, halfway-harrowing blocks from my parents home, the home of my youth. Six city blocks aren t much by way of distance. In the city, every block is a microvillage worthy of recognition. Together, six blocks might constitute an entire neighborhood,
possibly two, each with its own abiding culture. Here in the suburbs, however, the block is a nearly inconsequential unit of measurement. Here, all movement is coordinate based: the corner of Main and East 6th or behind the Friendly s or you know, the old yellow house with the POW flag? Distance is also measured in time: twelve minutes door to door or twenty-five minutes without traffic or I did it in under an hour cuz there were no cops. And there is no minimum distance for traveling by car. No one walks anywhere, at any time especially if the stretch of land in question is a six-lane commercial corridor flankedby incomplete sidewalks and a coarse layer of crushed gravel whose low, Wild-West plumes of gray dust materialize at each step.
The people in the cars zooming past me, if they have taken notice, assume I m poor, homeless, high, or here illegally, and likely all of the above. If they ve given me a closer look fitted, dark green slacks; summery white linen long-sleeve button-down shirt open somewhat seductively to mid-sternum; brown skin they might be confused. They might be telling themselves I m lost or stranded. In their defense, I am the sole person standing on this narrow ledge of pseudo-sidewalk, which ends in about fifty feet. From here,
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Inhaltsverzeichnis zu „The Town of Babylon “
1. SIDEWALKS2. SUBURBS
3. ITALIAN RESTAURANTS
4. NUNS
5. OPEN BAR
6. HIGH SCHOOL
7. MOM & DAD
8. PARKING LOTS
9. BASEMENTS
10. BAGELS
11. HENRY
12. PEARL JAM
13. THE NEIGHBORHOOD
14. LATE-STAGE CAPITALISM
15. PAUL S DAD
16. COUPLES COUNSELING
17. FRIDAY NIGHTS
18. SUNDAY MASS
19. COMMUNITY COLLEGE
20. MARTYRDOM
21. THE HOLY SPIRIT
22. SAINT JOSEPH
23. MARGARITAS
24. GETAWAY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Autoren-Porträt von Alejandro Varela
Alejandro Varela (he/him) is a writer based in New York. His writing has appeared in the Point Magazine, Boston Review, Harper's, Split Lip, the Georgia Review, the Rumpus, the Brooklyn Rail, the Offing, and the New Republic, among other publications. He is a 2019 Jerome Fellow in Literature. He was a resident in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council s 2017 2018 Workspace program and a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Nonfiction. Alejandro is an editor-at-large of Apogee Journal. His graduate studies were in public health. His first book, The Town of Babylon, was published by Astra House in 2022. His second book, The People Who Report More Stress, is forthcoming (Astra House, 2023). Varela believes strongly in reparations, land back, a national health service, and a thirty dollar minimum wage pegged to inflation as interventions essential for the collective liberation of our society. Access his work at alejandrovarela.work. You can also find him on Twitter and IG: @drovarela.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Alejandro Varela
- 2022, 320 Seiten, Maße: 15,5 x 23,2 cm, Gebunden, Englisch
- Verlag: Penguin Random House
- ISBN-10: 1662601034
- ISBN-13: 9781662601033
- Erscheinungsdatum: 22.11.2022
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
A FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTIONLONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE
A LIBRARY JOURNAL AND PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY "BEST BOOK OF 2022"
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022 Boston Globe, BuzzFeed, LitHub, Electric Literature, LGBTQ Reads, Latinx in Publishing
*Recommended by The New York Times*
"Intimate and expansive, universal and local, funny and heartbreaking, Alejandro Varela's The Town of Babylon delivers a rich, energetic narrative of life and death in an American suburb. A gay Latinx man returns to his hometown to care for ailing parents and finds himself forced to confront the histories of love, loss, struggle, and sacrifice that, for better and worse, have formed him. With this urgent, vivid novel, Varela has given us a modern classic and an indelible portrait of our times."
A Finalist for the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction, The National Book Foundation
Unsparing yet big-hearted, The Town of Babylon will delight anyone who s ever dreaded a school reunion or believed they d outgrown a community. Varela throws open the closet of queer suburban adolescence with verve, empathy, and insight. A deeply moving debut.
Julian Lucas, staff writer, The New Yorker
"In portraying Babylon, the diverse working-class Long Island town where he grew up, Varela paid attention to the heart disease, drug abuse, and dwindling economic opportunities that add up to a kind of communal stress and desperation. But the book, set over a week following a 20th high school reunion, also features sex and longing, love for family and friends, and an overarching wry affection."
Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe
"A richly textured portrait of ordinary queer life."
Book Riot
"The Town of Babylon is a grown up and realistic story that thoughtfully depicts the struggle to find out how to deal with the past when all you want is to move forward."
David Vogel, BuzzFeed
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"The Town of Babylon foregrounds the way social differences play out between white and non-white, non-white and non-white, white and white. Despite what some of the United States population would like to believe, differences of race, gender, class, sexuality, religion cannot be elided, cannot go unseen. Varela s keen attentiveness to the everyday unraveling of such relations indicates his sensitivity to the conditions of life as we know it."
Marcos Gonsalez, Protean Magazine
"[Varela's] precise pacing of [the] pivotal moments make for storytelling both riveting and poignant... [the novel's] distinct and intertwining narrative voices justify the rich and pointed cultural critique of the American suburb."
Benedict Nguy n, INTO
"A dynamic and resonant debut . . . Hopefully there will be more books to come from the talented Varela."
Bay Area Reporter
"Line for vivid line, Alejandro Varela s The Town of Babylon is a deep breath of fresh air, while idea for incisive idea it is a howl of righteous rage. Rage at the suburbs, at the past, at a country whose promises are glibly made and rarely kept, at all the great and small ways we betray each other and ourselves. But it s also a novel about love. Love s power, limits, and impossible persistence in the first and last places we think to look for it. The Town of Babylon is a remarkable debut from a tremendous new voice."
Justin Taylor, author of Riding with the Ghost
"In The Town of Babylon, Alejandro Varela, whose educational background is in public health, combines a social scientist s powers of observation and analysis with a master writer s ability to delineate character in rich, absorbing prose. This is a challenging, fascinating portrait of contemporary America."
John Clum, New York Journal of Books
"New York-based Latino writer Alejandro Varela weaves together histories of immigration, economic unease, and the health complications of racism in America."
Marcela Rodés, Al Día
"A gay Latinx man reckons with his past when he returns home for his 20th high school class reunion in Varela s dazzling debut . . . an incandescent bildungsroman"
Starred review, Publisher's Weekly
"Varela s debut novel shimmers with tension, navigating the personal and political with practiced ease. Treading the waters of adolescence and adulthood, The Town of Babylon navigates the complexities of home, queerness, and messy histories with measure and empathy. Weaving together histories of immigration, economic unease, and the health complications of racism in America, Varela troubles ideas of community and shared experience amidst a polarizing landscape."
Kaitlynn Cassady, Seminary Co-op Bookstores
"The novel s achievement lies in its simultaneous depth and expansiveness its huge ensemble of characters, the precision with which the landscape and culture of Andres hometown are rendered."
Kirkus Reviews
"Alejandro Varela's The Town of Babylon takes the tedium and heartbreak of life and renders it in extraordinary ways. I am astonished by the way Varela captures that difficult liminality: where love, under certain circumstances, slights as much as it heals. He gets to the core of all the human pressures of living in a country where everything everything has a price. The Town of Babylon is haunting, sublime, solemn, and true."
Robert Jones Jr., author of The New York Times bestselling The Prophets, finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction
"Alejandro Varela's debut dazzles, astonishes, and grabs hold of your heart through the very last page. Heartbreak and secrets abound in this intense, astute meditation on race, family, class, love, and friendship. Varela's wry humor is the icing on the cake of this brilliant novel."
Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction
"In Alejandro Varela s assured debut, a man s reluctant return to his hometown reveals that the past is not as distant as we sometimes tell ourselves it is. The Town of Babylon is funny and sexy as well as thoughtful, even heartbreaking. It s an incisive taxonomy of the American suburb, looking beyond the white picket fence to tell a different story what it is to be queer, the child of immigrants, and a person of color in this country."
Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind, finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction
"The Town of Babylon is epic, intimate, hilarious, and heartrending: an unqualified achievement of the highest degree. Alejandro Varela captures suburbia's gridlocked travails alongside the infinitude of the heart, excavating and illuminating questions of home, family, debt, and happiness. It's as much a love story as it is a story about love in the world, broaching the impossible question of whether we can ever really go home again but Varela clears it with ease. This book is a queer masterpiece and Varela's prose is masterful. I didn't want it to end."
Bryan Washington, award-winning author of Memorial and Lot
"A thoughtful deep dive into a gay Latino man's return to his working-class town, where his alienation lies in wait. Alejandro Varela's promising debut is filled with insight about the past that produced our wounds, and how, despite having answers to lifelong questions, it holds no redemption. Intimate and jarring."
Sarah Schulman, author of After Delores and Let the Record Show
"Alejandro Varela dissects the disease of suburban life in The Town of Babylon, a finely-crafted literary scalpel with two edges, one that cuts through the layers of a dying body politic and another that clears arteries blocking the way to the heart of personal and political health: community."
Roberto Lovato, author of Unforgetting
"The Town of Babylon marks the debut of a major talent. Alejandro Varela puts a new twist on the American contemporary novel dealing with immigration, identity, race and gender. His scope is wide, encompassing, and his vision of the 'melting pot' includes a generous portion of the various kinds of Americans that comprise the United States . . . The Town of Babylon made me consider pertinent questions that much contemporary fiction is too timid to delve into in a compassionate, piercing and unsentimental way. Varela's marvelous achievement reminds me of the world of John Updike's Rabbit Run and of the deeply troubled America in Philip Roth's American Pastoral."
Jaime Manrique, author of Latin Moon In Manhattan
"The Town of Babylon foregrounds the way social differences play out between white and non-white, non-white and non-white, white and white. Despite what some of the United States population would like to believe, differences of race, gender, class, sexuality, religion cannot be elided, cannot go unseen. Varela s keen attentiveness to the everyday unraveling of such relations indicates his sensitivity to the conditions of life as we know it."
Marcos Gonsalez, Protean Magazine
"[Varela's] precise pacing of [the] pivotal moments make for storytelling both riveting and poignant... [the novel's] distinct and intertwining narrative voices justify the rich and pointed cultural critique of the American suburb."
Benedict Nguy n, INTO
"A dynamic and resonant debut . . . Hopefully there will be more books to come from the talented Varela."
Bay Area Reporter
"Line for vivid line, Alejandro Varela s The Town of Babylon is a deep breath of fresh air, while idea for incisive idea it is a howl of righteous rage. Rage at the suburbs, at the past, at a country whose promises are glibly made and rarely kept, at all the great and small ways we betray each other and ourselves. But it s also a novel about love. Love s power, limits, and impossible persistence in the first and last places we think to look for it. The Town of Babylon is a remarkable debut from a tremendous new voice."
Justin Taylor, author of Riding with the Ghost
"In The Town of Babylon, Alejandro Varela, whose educational background is in public health, combines a social scientist s powers of observation and analysis with a master writer s ability to delineate character in rich, absorbing prose. This is a challenging, fascinating portrait of contemporary America."
John Clum, New York Journal of Books
"New York-based Latino writer Alejandro Varela weaves together histories of immigration, economic unease, and the health complications of racism in America."
Marcela Rodés, Al Día
"A gay Latinx man reckons with his past when he returns home for his 20th high school class reunion in Varela s dazzling debut . . . an incandescent bildungsroman"
Starred review, Publisher's Weekly
"Varela s debut novel shimmers with tension, navigating the personal and political with practiced ease. Treading the waters of adolescence and adulthood, The Town of Babylon navigates the complexities of home, queerness, and messy histories with measure and empathy. Weaving together histories of immigration, economic unease, and the health complications of racism in America, Varela troubles ideas of community and shared experience amidst a polarizing landscape."
Kaitlynn Cassady, Seminary Co-op Bookstores
"The novel s achievement lies in its simultaneous depth and expansiveness its huge ensemble of characters, the precision with which the landscape and culture of Andres hometown are rendered."
Kirkus Reviews
"Alejandro Varela's The Town of Babylon takes the tedium and heartbreak of life and renders it in extraordinary ways. I am astonished by the way Varela captures that difficult liminality: where love, under certain circumstances, slights as much as it heals. He gets to the core of all the human pressures of living in a country where everything everything has a price. The Town of Babylon is haunting, sublime, solemn, and true."
Robert Jones Jr., author of The New York Times bestselling The Prophets, finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction
"Alejandro Varela's debut dazzles, astonishes, and grabs hold of your heart through the very last page. Heartbreak and secrets abound in this intense, astute meditation on race, family, class, love, and friendship. Varela's wry humor is the icing on the cake of this brilliant novel."
Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction
"In Alejandro Varela s assured debut, a man s reluctant return to his hometown reveals that the past is not as distant as we sometimes tell ourselves it is. The Town of Babylon is funny and sexy as well as thoughtful, even heartbreaking. It s an incisive taxonomy of the American suburb, looking beyond the white picket fence to tell a different story what it is to be queer, the child of immigrants, and a person of color in this country."
Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind, finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction
"The Town of Babylon is epic, intimate, hilarious, and heartrending: an unqualified achievement of the highest degree. Alejandro Varela captures suburbia's gridlocked travails alongside the infinitude of the heart, excavating and illuminating questions of home, family, debt, and happiness. It's as much a love story as it is a story about love in the world, broaching the impossible question of whether we can ever really go home again but Varela clears it with ease. This book is a queer masterpiece and Varela's prose is masterful. I didn't want it to end."
Bryan Washington, award-winning author of Memorial and Lot
"A thoughtful deep dive into a gay Latino man's return to his working-class town, where his alienation lies in wait. Alejandro Varela's promising debut is filled with insight about the past that produced our wounds, and how, despite having answers to lifelong questions, it holds no redemption. Intimate and jarring."
Sarah Schulman, author of After Delores and Let the Record Show
"Alejandro Varela dissects the disease of suburban life in The Town of Babylon, a finely-crafted literary scalpel with two edges, one that cuts through the layers of a dying body politic and another that clears arteries blocking the way to the heart of personal and political health: community."
Roberto Lovato, author of Unforgetting
"The Town of Babylon marks the debut of a major talent. Alejandro Varela puts a new twist on the American contemporary novel dealing with immigration, identity, race and gender. His scope is wide, encompassing, and his vision of the 'melting pot' includes a generous portion of the various kinds of Americans that comprise the United States . . . The Town of Babylon made me consider pertinent questions that much contemporary fiction is too timid to delve into in a compassionate, piercing and unsentimental way. Varela's marvelous achievement reminds me of the world of John Updike's Rabbit Run and of the deeply troubled America in Philip Roth's American Pastoral."
Jaime Manrique, author of Latin Moon In Manhattan
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