Sep 29

Sep 29 Maria, Maria and Other Stories

Author: Marytza K. Rubio
Publisher: Liveright
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

“The first witch of the waters was born in Destruction. The moon named her Maria.”

Set against the tropics and megacities of the Americas, Maria, Maria takes inspiration from wild creatures, tarot, and the porous borders between life and death. Motivated by love and its inverse, grief, the characters who inhabit these stories negotiate boldly with nature to cast their desired ends. As the enigmatic community college professor in “Brujería for Beginners” reminds us: “There’s always a price for conjuring in darkness. You won’t always know what it is until payment is due.” This commitment drives the disturbingly faithful widow in “Tijuca,” who promises to bury her husband’s head in the rich dirt of the jungle, and the sisters in “Moksha,” who are tempted by a sleek obsidian dagger once held by a vampiric idol.

But magic isn’t limited to the women who wield it. As Rubio so brilliantly elucidates, animals are powerful magicians too. Subversive pigeons and hungry jaguars are called upon in “Tunnels,” and a lonely little girl runs free with a resurrected saber-toothed tiger in “Burial.” A colorful catalog of gallery exhibits from animals in therapy is featured in “Art Show,” including the Almost Philandering Fox, who longs after the red pelt of another, and the recently rehabilitated Paranoid Peacocks.

Brimming with sharp wit and ferocious female intuition, these stories bubble over into the titular novella, “Maria, Maria”—a tropigoth family drama set in a reimagined California rainforest that explores the legacies of three Marias, and possibly all Marias. Writing in prose so lush it threatens to creep off the page, Rubio emerges as an ineffable new voice in contemporary short fiction.

TL;DR Review

Maria, Maria is a playful, witchy collection of short stories written in different experimental formats. While I didn’t fall head over heels, I had a lot of fun reading this one.

For you if: You like short (occasionally really short!) stories steeped in metaphor and magic.

Full Review

Longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction, Maria, Maria and Other Stories is a playful, witchy collection that experiments with form and steeps itself in metaphor and Latine culture. As anyone who even loosely follows my reviews will know, this kind of thing is extremely my sh*t. And while I didn’t fall head over heels in love, I definitely had a lot of fun reading it.

These stories, set mostly in Latin-American cities, take all different shapes. We have a teacher conducting a class on witchcraft, an art exhibit showcasing art by animals, a woman who travels to Brazil to plant her deceased husband’s head in the earth, a dystopian future described in location-specific vignettes, and more. The last story is a novella and shares a title with the book.

In many ways, this is a collection of opposing forces: levity and darkness, life and death, love and grief, magic and the mundane. Rubio explores them all in ways that can be either enjoyed quickly or contemplated more deeply — which one depends on the reader. I found myself drawn to linger on the metaphors in some stories and happy to read and then move on from others. I thought the opening story was one of the strongest. I also really loved “Paint by Numbers,” which is practically microfiction and almost more like narrative poetry than a story.

If you’re open to experimental formats and love a witchy vibe, pick this one up.