Starred review from April 29, 2024
Sanchez debuts with a dazzling chronicle of a queer immigrant’s coming of age in Colombia and Miami. In late 1990s Ibague, Santiago and his older half brother, Manuel, are raised by his single mother, a doctor who often neglects to pick Santiago up from school (“Today she forgot to be a mother,” he narrates on one such occasion). After the family moves to Miami when Santiago is six, his mother struggles to find work. Manuel resents being dragged away from Colombia and begins to rebel, while Santiago comes to realize he is gay and develops an active sex life by the time he’s a teen. In his early 20s, after moving to Brooklyn and finding work as a waiter, Santiago joins his mother on a trip back to Colombia. There, he looks up his taciturn father, an erstwhile civil engineer who now drives a cab, and reconciles with the disconnection he feels from his birthplace. Santiago’s sad and dreamy perspective immerses readers into his search for a sense of home, and the many raw and sensual sex scenes speak to his hunger for connection. This is a triumph. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency.
