Join us on Wednesday, August 7 at 7pm PT when Vanessa Angélica Villarreal celebrates her book, Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders, with Laura Goode at 9th Ave!
Or watch online/Livestream link available soon
Praise for Magical/Realism
"Magical/Realism is staggeringly good; it's been ages since I've been this moved, challenged, and devastated by an essay collection. An energetic, paradigm-shifting book."--Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House
"A stunning, provocative, and essential book that lights up the mind. Villarreal's ferocious imagination is matched only by a roving intellect and so much heart that these essays will stay with you for a long time after reading. One of my favorite nonfiction collections of the past decade."--Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author
"Vanessa Angelica Villarreal's Magical/Realism is the impossible book that does so much so well and still retains a distinct and propulsive voice. Villarreal's formal variousness illuminates and usefully complicates her subjects, but the bedrock upon which she engages her intellectual might is a big beating heart--there are lines here that made me, a non-crier, actually well-up. About her father who taught himself to play guitar while his migrant laborer parents worked, Villarreal writes: 'He was not a rare mind dreaming in a place that suppresses dreams with debt and labor. What is rare is that he almost made it.' Often, for Villarreal, tenderness presents itself as a kind of rage, a rage that emerges from an ability to perceive the interiority of the harmed. Our loss, how rare this rage--without any accompanying smug back-patting--feels in the contemporary critical discourse. Our luck, to find in such abundance here."--Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author of Martyr!
About Magical/Realism
Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this brilliant, singular collection of essays explores migration, violence, and colonial erasure through the lens of music and pop culture, and from the perspective of a Mexican American daughter from the Rio Grande Valley.
In MAGICAL/REALISM, poet and essayist Vanessa Angélica Villarreal intimately and fearlessly explores the many complicated girlhoods of being a working-class, first-generation, Mexican American daughter of a cumbia musician. She loved grunge and hated Selena. She found refuge in 80s fantasy movies and in the half-acre of swampy pines behind her Houston home. And she navigated a country that never really saw her--or her family's--value beyond their labor.
These essays sharply weave together memoir with explorations of race, class, and gender, using music and pop culture as their axis. In one essay, Vanessa writes about Nirvana's impact on her life as an outcast; in another she looks critically at the Latina body as a site of trouble and all that gets projected onto it. In "When We All Loved a Show About a Wall," Vanessa provides a crucial reading of Game of Thrones, showing its radical political commentaries on borders, asylum, migrant rights, and ICE. And in "The Fantasy of Healing," she connects her own divorce and trauma to the video game The Witcher.
With MAGICAL/REALISM, Vanessa recovers the truth from the absences and silences of migration, colonialism, and white supremacy. She looks closely at music as a stand-in for the archive of the undocumented and how pop culture leaves objects behind as portals for memory. This is a wise, tender, expansive collection from a dazzling, essential voice.
About Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
Vanessa Angélica Villarreal was born in the Rio Grande Valley to Mexican immigrants. She is the author of Beast Meridian, which received a Whiting Award, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award nomination, and the Texas Institute of Letters John A. Robertson Award. She was a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts fellow, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Harper's Bazaar, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles with her son.
About Laura Goode
Laura Goode is the author of a young adult novel, a collection of poetry, and a film. She teaches in the English department and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Stanford University, where she also co-hosts the podcast The Feminist Present. Her third book, QUEEN PITCH: The Craft of Pitching, Publishing, and Performing Confidence, is forthcoming from Ten Speed Press in 2025.
show less
Or watch online/Livestream link available soon
Praise for Magical/Realism
"Magical/Realism is staggeringly good; it's been ages since I've been this moved, challenged, and devastated by an essay collection. An energetic, paradigm-shifting book."--Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House
"A stunning, provocative, and essential book that lights up the mind. Villarreal's ferocious imagination is matched only by a roving intellect and so much heart that these essays will stay with you for a long time after reading. One of my favorite nonfiction collections of the past decade."--Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author
"Vanessa Angelica Villarreal's Magical/Realism is the impossible book that does so much so well and still retains a distinct and propulsive voice. Villarreal's formal variousness illuminates and usefully complicates her subjects, but the bedrock upon which she engages her intellectual might is a big beating heart--there are lines here that made me, a non-crier, actually well-up. About her father who taught himself to play guitar while his migrant laborer parents worked, Villarreal writes: 'He was not a rare mind dreaming in a place that suppresses dreams with debt and labor. What is rare is that he almost made it.' Often, for Villarreal, tenderness presents itself as a kind of rage, a rage that emerges from an ability to perceive the interiority of the harmed. Our loss, how rare this rage--without any accompanying smug back-patting--feels in the contemporary critical discourse. Our luck, to find in such abundance here."--Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author of Martyr!
About Magical/Realism
Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this brilliant, singular collection of essays explores migration, violence, and colonial erasure through the lens of music and pop culture, and from the perspective of a Mexican American daughter from the Rio Grande Valley.
In MAGICAL/REALISM, poet and essayist Vanessa Angélica Villarreal intimately and fearlessly explores the many complicated girlhoods of being a working-class, first-generation, Mexican American daughter of a cumbia musician. She loved grunge and hated Selena. She found refuge in 80s fantasy movies and in the half-acre of swampy pines behind her Houston home. And she navigated a country that never really saw her--or her family's--value beyond their labor.
These essays sharply weave together memoir with explorations of race, class, and gender, using music and pop culture as their axis. In one essay, Vanessa writes about Nirvana's impact on her life as an outcast; in another she looks critically at the Latina body as a site of trouble and all that gets projected onto it. In "When We All Loved a Show About a Wall," Vanessa provides a crucial reading of Game of Thrones, showing its radical political commentaries on borders, asylum, migrant rights, and ICE. And in "The Fantasy of Healing," she connects her own divorce and trauma to the video game The Witcher.
With MAGICAL/REALISM, Vanessa recovers the truth from the absences and silences of migration, colonialism, and white supremacy. She looks closely at music as a stand-in for the archive of the undocumented and how pop culture leaves objects behind as portals for memory. This is a wise, tender, expansive collection from a dazzling, essential voice.
About Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
Vanessa Angélica Villarreal was born in the Rio Grande Valley to Mexican immigrants. She is the author of Beast Meridian, which received a Whiting Award, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award nomination, and the Texas Institute of Letters John A. Robertson Award. She was a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts fellow, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Harper's Bazaar, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles with her son.
About Laura Goode
Laura Goode is the author of a young adult novel, a collection of poetry, and a film. She teaches in the English department and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Stanford University, where she also co-hosts the podcast The Feminist Present. Her third book, QUEEN PITCH: The Craft of Pitching, Publishing, and Performing Confidence, is forthcoming from Ten Speed Press in 2025.
Join us on Wednesday, August 7 at 7pm PT when Vanessa Angélica Villarreal celebrates her book, Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders, with Laura Goode at 9th Ave!
Or watch online/Livestream link available soon
Praise for Magical/Realism
"Magical/Realism is staggeringly good; it's been ages since I've been this moved, challenged, and devastated by an essay collection. An energetic, paradigm-shifting book."--Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House
"A stunning, provocative, and essential book that lights up the mind. Villarreal's ferocious imagination is matched only by a roving intellect and so much heart that these essays will stay with you for a long time after reading. One of my favorite nonfiction collections of the past decade."--Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author
"Vanessa Angelica Villarreal's Magical/Realism is the impossible book that does so much so well and still retains a distinct and propulsive voice. Villarreal's formal variousness illuminates and usefully complicates her subjects, but the bedrock upon which she engages her intellectual might is a big beating heart--there are lines here that made me, a non-crier, actually well-up. About her father who taught himself to play guitar while his migrant laborer parents worked, Villarreal writes: 'He was not a rare mind dreaming in a place that suppresses dreams with debt and labor. What is rare is that he almost made it.' Often, for Villarreal, tenderness presents itself as a kind of rage, a rage that emerges from an ability to perceive the interiority of the harmed. Our loss, how rare this rage--without any accompanying smug back-patting--feels in the contemporary critical discourse. Our luck, to find in such abundance here."--Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author of Martyr!
About Magical/Realism
Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this brilliant, singular collection of essays explores migration, violence, and colonial erasure through the lens of music and pop culture, and from the perspective of a Mexican American daughter from the Rio Grande Valley.
In MAGICAL/REALISM, poet and essayist Vanessa Angélica Villarreal intimately and fearlessly explores the many complicated girlhoods of being a working-class, first-generation, Mexican American daughter of a cumbia musician. She loved grunge and hated Selena. She found refuge in 80s fantasy movies and in the half-acre of swampy pines behind her Houston home. And she navigated a country that never really saw her--or her family's--value beyond their labor.
These essays sharply weave together memoir with explorations of race, class, and gender, using music and pop culture as their axis. In one essay, Vanessa writes about Nirvana's impact on her life as an outcast; in another she looks critically at the Latina body as a site of trouble and all that gets projected onto it. In "When We All Loved a Show About a Wall," Vanessa provides a crucial reading of Game of Thrones, showing its radical political commentaries on borders, asylum, migrant rights, and ICE. And in "The Fantasy of Healing," she connects her own divorce and trauma to the video game The Witcher.
With MAGICAL/REALISM, Vanessa recovers the truth from the absences and silences of migration, colonialism, and white supremacy. She looks closely at music as a stand-in for the archive of the undocumented and how pop culture leaves objects behind as portals for memory. This is a wise, tender, expansive collection from a dazzling, essential voice.
About Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
Vanessa Angélica Villarreal was born in the Rio Grande Valley to Mexican immigrants. She is the author of Beast Meridian, which received a Whiting Award, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award nomination, and the Texas Institute of Letters John A. Robertson Award. She was a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts fellow, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Harper's Bazaar, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles with her son.
About Laura Goode
Laura Goode is the author of a young adult novel, a collection of poetry, and a film. She teaches in the English department and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Stanford University, where she also co-hosts the podcast The Feminist Present. Her third book, QUEEN PITCH: The Craft of Pitching, Publishing, and Performing Confidence, is forthcoming from Ten Speed Press in 2025.
read more
Or watch online/Livestream link available soon
Praise for Magical/Realism
"Magical/Realism is staggeringly good; it's been ages since I've been this moved, challenged, and devastated by an essay collection. An energetic, paradigm-shifting book."--Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House
"A stunning, provocative, and essential book that lights up the mind. Villarreal's ferocious imagination is matched only by a roving intellect and so much heart that these essays will stay with you for a long time after reading. One of my favorite nonfiction collections of the past decade."--Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author
"Vanessa Angelica Villarreal's Magical/Realism is the impossible book that does so much so well and still retains a distinct and propulsive voice. Villarreal's formal variousness illuminates and usefully complicates her subjects, but the bedrock upon which she engages her intellectual might is a big beating heart--there are lines here that made me, a non-crier, actually well-up. About her father who taught himself to play guitar while his migrant laborer parents worked, Villarreal writes: 'He was not a rare mind dreaming in a place that suppresses dreams with debt and labor. What is rare is that he almost made it.' Often, for Villarreal, tenderness presents itself as a kind of rage, a rage that emerges from an ability to perceive the interiority of the harmed. Our loss, how rare this rage--without any accompanying smug back-patting--feels in the contemporary critical discourse. Our luck, to find in such abundance here."--Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author of Martyr!
About Magical/Realism
Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this brilliant, singular collection of essays explores migration, violence, and colonial erasure through the lens of music and pop culture, and from the perspective of a Mexican American daughter from the Rio Grande Valley.
In MAGICAL/REALISM, poet and essayist Vanessa Angélica Villarreal intimately and fearlessly explores the many complicated girlhoods of being a working-class, first-generation, Mexican American daughter of a cumbia musician. She loved grunge and hated Selena. She found refuge in 80s fantasy movies and in the half-acre of swampy pines behind her Houston home. And she navigated a country that never really saw her--or her family's--value beyond their labor.
These essays sharply weave together memoir with explorations of race, class, and gender, using music and pop culture as their axis. In one essay, Vanessa writes about Nirvana's impact on her life as an outcast; in another she looks critically at the Latina body as a site of trouble and all that gets projected onto it. In "When We All Loved a Show About a Wall," Vanessa provides a crucial reading of Game of Thrones, showing its radical political commentaries on borders, asylum, migrant rights, and ICE. And in "The Fantasy of Healing," she connects her own divorce and trauma to the video game The Witcher.
With MAGICAL/REALISM, Vanessa recovers the truth from the absences and silences of migration, colonialism, and white supremacy. She looks closely at music as a stand-in for the archive of the undocumented and how pop culture leaves objects behind as portals for memory. This is a wise, tender, expansive collection from a dazzling, essential voice.
About Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
Vanessa Angélica Villarreal was born in the Rio Grande Valley to Mexican immigrants. She is the author of Beast Meridian, which received a Whiting Award, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award nomination, and the Texas Institute of Letters John A. Robertson Award. She was a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts fellow, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Harper's Bazaar, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles with her son.
About Laura Goode
Laura Goode is the author of a young adult novel, a collection of poetry, and a film. She teaches in the English department and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Stanford University, where she also co-hosts the podcast The Feminist Present. Her third book, QUEEN PITCH: The Craft of Pitching, Publishing, and Performing Confidence, is forthcoming from Ten Speed Press in 2025.
show less
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