How to Leave Hialeah (Iowa Short Fiction Award)
In this engrossing collection—sometimes intense, at other times darkly humorous—debut author Crucet portrays the daily challenges, heartbreak and family ties that penetrate Hialeah, a working-class Cuban-American neighborhood in Miami. In El Destino Hauling, a young girl pays witness to a night-long family funeral for a father who was run over by his son, perhaps by intent. The Next Move follows a grandfather left to struggle through the day without his wife while she's visiting family in Cuba. In Men Who Punched Me in the Face, a woman repeatedly drawn to abusive men convinces herself she enjoys being hit. A story set in the Cuban countryside finds a young woman struggling to make ends meet with just three prized possessions: a rooster, a bar of soap and Kotex maxi pads. Crucet details vividly the daily struggle that leads Cubans to prize their heritage above much else, but also illuminates a powerful need to escape the past.(Sept.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.