The Five Wounds

(Paperback, Main)

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Winner of The Center for Fiction's 2021 First Novel Prize

'A gorgeously written, Franzen-calibre tale' - O Magazine

In this vivid, darkly funny and beautifully rendered debut novel, Kirstin Valdez Quade brings to life the struggles of five generations of the Padilla family. Amadeo, struggling to stay off the bottle, Angel, his pregnant fifteen-year-old daughter, Yolanda, the family matriarch, reeling from a recent discovery, Angel's mother, who Angel isn't speaking to and Tio Tive, keeper of the family's history. But amid the challenges they face individually and together, it is Connor, Angel's baby, who might just be the one to save the family from themselves.

Reviews

'An unputdownable novel, The Five Wounds takes my breath away with its intimate, humorous and heart-aching portrayal of a New Mexican family.' - Yiyun Li, author of Must I Go

'Incredibly well crafted ... captures both the strength and fragility of relationships and existence and the resilience and great power of love and belief.' - A. M. Homes, author of May We Be Forgiven

'Luminous and memorable ... Just as the pacing is perfect, so too are the tact and care with which each scene is made.' - Colm Toibin, author of House of Names

'Kirstin Valdez Quade writes with exquisite precision about the fragility and resilience of the Amadeo family... I loved The Five Wounds, which reminded me that growing pains are not confined to adolescence' - Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!

'The acclaimed author of Nights at the Fiestas returns with a gorgeously written, Franzen-caliber tale of one Latinx family's via dolorosa.' - Oprah Magazine's Best Books of 2021

Author Bio

Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of Night at the Fiestas, winner of the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize. She is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a '5 Under 35' award from the National Book Foundation, the Rome Prize, a Stegner Fellowship and the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, The New York Times, The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor at Princeton University.