If Junot Diaz’s critically acclaimed collection Drown and Janet Mock’s Emmy-winning series Pose produced offspring, Alejandro Heredia’s Loca would be their firstborn.It’s 1999, and best friends Sal and Charo are striving to hold on to their dreams in a New York determined to grind them down. Sal is a book-loving science nerd trying to grow beyond his dead-end job in a new city, but he’s held back by tragic memories from his past in Santo Domingo. Free-spirited Charo is surprised to find herself a mother at twenty-five, partnered with a controlling man, working at the same supermarket for years, her world shrunk to the very domesticity she thought she’d escaped in her old country. When Sal finds love at a gay club one night, both his and Charo’s worlds unexpectedly open up to a vibrant social circle that pushes them to reckon with what they owe to their own selves, pasts, futures, and, always, each other.Loca follows one daring year in the lives of young people living at the edge of their own patience and desires. With expansive grace, it reveals both the grueling conditions that force people to migrate and the possibility of friendship as home when family, nations, and identity groups fall short. Alejandro Heredia is a queer Afro-Dominican writer from the Bronx. He has received fellowships from Lambda Literary, VONA, and the Dominican Studies Institute. In 2019, he was selected by Myriam Gurba as the winner of the Gold Line Press Fiction Chapbook Contest. His chapbook of short stories, You're the Only Friend I Need, explores themes of queer transnationalism, friendship, and (un)belonging in the African Diaspora. Heredia's work has been featured in Teen Vogue, Lambda Literary Review, Tasteful Rude Magazine, and elsewhere. He received an MFA in fiction from Hunter College. Loca is his debut novel. Publisher: Simon & Schuster Publish Date: February 11, 2025 Pages: 352 Dimensions: 5.5 X 8.38 X 0.67 inches | 0.83 pounds Language: English Type: Hardcover EAN/UPC: 9781668050460 BISAC Categories: Literary, Hispanic & Latino, LGBT - General
