"Malas" by Marcela Fuentes, a Pushcart Prize-winning fiction writer is our "GMA" Book Club pick for June.
Fuentes' debut novel takes readers to experience the life of one family living on the Texas-Mexico border with a curse that echoed across generations.
Taking place in two different eras between the 1950s and 1990s, "Malas" is a vibrant portrait of two fierce women, separated by decades, but both determined to thwart fate and escape the confines of their lives.
The tale began in 1951 when Pilar Aguierre was pregnant with her second child and an old woman accused her of stealing her husband before laying a curse on Pilar's family.
Fast forward to 1996, Lulu Muñoz is dodging chaos at every turn, dealing with her troubled father's moods, his rules, living her secret life as a singer in a punk band, but most of all her upcoming quinceañera. When her grandmother died, Lulu finds herself falling for a stranger who crashed the funeral. Their unexpected kinship picks at the secrets of Lulu's family's past.This month, we are also teaming up with Little Free Library to give out free copies in Times Square and at 150 locations across the U.S. and Canada. Since 2009, more than 300 million books have been shared in Little Free Libraries across the world. Click here to find a copy of "Malas" at a Little Free Library location near you.
Read along with us and join the conversation all month on our Instagram account, @GMABookClub, and with #GMABookClub.
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After children, you can never be whole again. Después de dar a luz, your body comes back incomplete. You're alone inside yourself, like you never were before your man took you, made you a mother.
Once there was a girl, just fifteen.
A girl at a charreada, a rodeo in another place and time. A girl standing on a metal staircase, a glass of lemonade sweating in her hand. She lost her heart to a young charro.
Oh, he made the dust fly for her.
Invisible girl, snatching at her father's affection. She was a quince, but a secret, pecadillo de Papá, her birthday this clandestine weekend away.
You know you're my favorite, Papá said, bought her a slew of pretty dresses, a dawn mariachi serenade, tickets for the two of them to the charreada.
Let her wander among the vendors and peddlers in the stockyard, said, Buy anything you want.
La quince was buying the lemonade when the charro crossed her path.
The charro was not like her papá. Not of the landed class.
Young and swarthy, he was a horseman, a vaquero, born and raised on the range, campfires in his blood, his whole life the lariat and saddle, wind and open sky.
He wore no charro short jacket, just a white shirt with modest stitching. His leather chaps were oiled but scarred. He was bareheaded and the afternoon light made his black hair glow.
She felt him beside her, quiet as the warm sun. He wanted her to look at him. She kept her eyes down; she was a good girl.
When the vendor turned away to make change, the charro leaned in and whispered, "The next suerte is for you."
La quince pulled away, but he was gone, already weaving his way through the crowd.
She stopped at the top of the staircase on her way back to her seat. There was the charro, standing in the arena, the reins of an unsaddled bay in his hand.
She could not see his face beneath his sombrero, only the brief glint of his teeth. She didn't smile back. She was a good girl. But she stayed. She watched. His ride was for her.
The charro held up his hand, three fingers spread, at the spectators in the grandstand, at the other competitors sitting on the chutes.
Three broncs charged through the stock gate, into the arena.
The young charro sprang onto his horse from the ground. It was a light movement, as though someone had tossed him up.
His thighs against the horse's hide were lean and hard. The girl stood, rooted to the landing, the glass of lemonade cold in her hand.
He pulled his mount alongside the broncs, setting his horse at pace with the lead mare.
The other charros drove the animals hard, round and round the arena, lifting thunderheads of dust. Hooves rumbled against the earth, riatas hissed, the charros called low and fierce, driving them faster.
The young charro rode past, one leg cocked beneath him, ready to spring.
She felt the rush of air as he galloped by. His horse's harsh breath flecked the hem of her new dress with spittle. Her heart flew away quick as quick, a golondrina startled from its nest, never to return.
The young charro leaped bare back to bare back, body half-curled, shadowy in the dusty air.
And then he was across, fists full of sorrel mane, fighting to keep his seat as the wild horse twisted beneath him. His sombrero tumbled off, swept away beneath the onslaught of hooves. He rode the bronco the circuit twice through.
His teammates lifted their voices in triumphant gritos—"A-hahaaaaayyy! José Alfredo!"
He was a proud one. But she was prouder. Didn't they see what he'd done for her? Didn't they know?
Looking for that girl is like looking backward through a telescope. She's far away and so tiny I can cover her with the tip of my finger, like blotting out the sun. I can still feel her radiating. But I don't know where she has gone.
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From "MALAS" by Marcela Fuentes, published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2024 by Marcela Fuentes.
