My grandmother Fefita sits for la cena while my great-grandmother Maria Antonia cautions her on the caprices of obstetrics. Fefita is six months pregnant with her first child, my aunt Juana.
“The crying is horrible,” Doña Maria Antonia counsels her fresh-faced daughter-in-law, “but the silence is far worse.”
On Wednesday, November 5, LIVE from the NYPL will graciously host Akashic’s Tehran Noir/Tel Aviv Noir panel event from 7 to 9 p.m. in the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. This discussion, moderated by best-selling novelist Rick Moody (The Ice Storm), features four contributing authors to these newest Noir Series titles and will explore their writing as it pertains to life both within these cities and outside of them. In honor of their housing our event, today Akashic spotlights the Live from the NYPL discussion and reading series.
Now Available: The Caribbean Debuts Digit and The Kaylie Jones Books Digit, two free e-books comprising excerpts from great titles.
Men is stupid creatures, you know. Anyone ask, tell them La-La say that . . .
The rain stops now and I shake my head to fling the last drop off my big straw hat. It have a freezing trickle of water running down my arm, a silver ball escaping down to the tip of my finger. Forest rain does be like that: cold in the humidity, shining like hell when the light touch it . . .
“J’Ouvert morning is when the angels and demons dance,” PaPa had said. His words were on a loop in Viv’s head as she made her way through the crowds on Back Street in Kingstown. Daylight had caught the night, melting dark tendrils until they turned grey . . .
When the young soucouyant first realised there was a baby growing in her, she held the thought in her head tightly, boxing it in the same way you might wrap a pastelle: fold one side over and seal before folding the other side . . .
At night you lie awake, kept up by the sounds of running feet and children’s eerie laughter . . .