The Sons of El Rey

(Hardback)

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One of the Today Shows Most Anticipated Books of 2024

A timeless, epic novel about a family of luchadores contending with forbidden love and secrets in Mexico City, Los Angeles, and beyond.

Ernesto Vega has lived many lives, from pig farmer to construction worker to famed luchador El Rey Coyote, yet he has always worn a mask. He was discovered by a local lucha libre trainer at a time when luchadoresMexican wrestlers donning flamboyant masks and capeswere treated as daredevils or rock stars. Ernesto found fame, rapidly gaining name recognition across Mexico, but at great expense, nearly costing him his marriage to his wife Elena.

Years later, in East Los Angeles, his son, Freddy Vega, is struggling to save his fathers gym while Freddys own son, Julian, is searching for professional and romantic fulfillment as a Mexican American gay man refusing to be defined by stereotypes.

With alternating perspectives, Ernesto and Elena take you from the ranches of Michoacn to the makeshift colonias of Mexico City. Freddy describes life in the suburban streets of 1980s Los Angeles and the community their family built, as Julian descends deep into our present-day culture of hook-up apps, lucha burlesque shows, and the dark underbelly of West Hollywood. The Sons of El Rey is an intimate portrait of a family wading against time and legacy, yet always choosing the fight.

Reviews

With shocks of truth and tenderness on every page, The Sons of El Rey is a masterful exploration of a family reckoning with its most sacred secrets. Mesmerizing and unflinching, Espinoza's luchadores will wrestle their way deep into your heart. An absolute knockout of a novel.
Patricia Engel, New York Times bestselling author of Infinite Country

"The Sons of El Reypinned me to the mat with its compelling and moving tale of a multigenerational luchador dynasty. Espinoza delivers a deceptively profound unmasking of the human heart."
Antoine Wilson, author ofMouth to Mouth
This warm, engaging, and endearing jaunt through the world of lucha libre joyfully grapples and body-slams its way across borders and decades.The Sons of El Reyis classic Alex Espinoza: a smart and smooth novel that pulls you into its big, rich, and human world.
Hctor Tobar, authorof Our Migrant Soulsand the NYT-bestsellingDeep Down Dark

The Sons of El Reyhas costume and swagger and performancefantastically sobut beneath that, its a novel about being a mortal, complicated being in a world less generous even than the Lucha Libre arena. Alex Espinoza has written a story that feels both compact and epic about the many lives we live in the secret cloak of our own skin.
Ramona Ausubel, author ofThe Last Animal
Before the glam drama of drag queens, there existed the flamboyant reign of kings like El Rey, an underdog transformed into a superhero.This is the story of a lucha libre dynasty that battles with ghosts and regrets, heroes and humiliations. It is as much the chronicle of a dying Mexican patriarch as it is about his gay grandson, both hiding behind stoic masks.Ultimately, it is a tale about that country called desire.
Sandra Cisneros, award-winning and bestselling author of The House on Mango Street

Espinoza has written an epic and transporting novel that follows one family but tells the story of many. This braided epic brims with heart, intelligence, and humor. It's also sexy as hell. The lives of the Vega dynasty twist, turn, and ultimately interlock in a manner that expertly mirrors the grappling bodies of the luchadores depicted here.
Alejandro Varela, National Book Award finalist and author ofThe Town of Babylon
A triumph thats gripping to the end! This moving tale set in the world of lucha libre unfolds across time, geography and gender, as voices both living and in the spirit world gather around the deathbed of Ernesto Vega, a luchador who fought under the name El Rey Coyote.
Janet Fitch, bestselling author ofWhite OleanderandThe Revolution of Marina M.

"Alex Espinoza writes with singular grace, humor and deep empathy for his characters who journey between Mexico and California to make new lives, to ache for the past even while tasting the future on their tongues.In The Sons of El Rey, he's given us a powerful sweep of three generations of dreamers through the story of lucha libre as legend, historia and tradition.This family is unforgettable."
Susan Straight, National Book Award finalist and author of Mecca
"Alex Espinoza's extraordinary new novel unveils a complex world of men thwartingdestiny, or getting yoked by it. In language as unsparing as the characters he depicts, The Sons of El Rey is about herculean endurance in the ring, on the streets, at work, in bed,everywhere. It's a rare look at the suffocations and thrills of toxic masculinity told with bravura, tenderness, and great beauty."
Cristina Garca, National Book Award finalist andauthor ofDreaming in Cuban andVanishing Maps

Author Bio

Alex Espinoza was born in Tijuana, Mexico, and raised in suburban Los Angeles. He is the author of the novels Still Water Saints and The Five Acts of Diego Len, as well as a book of nonfiction, Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime. Alex teaches at UC-Riverside where he serves as the Toms Rivera Endowed Chair of Creative Writing.