Litany of Saints by Diana Rojas

About the book:

In the opening piece, “The Lives of Saints,” an immigrant family from Costa Rica regularly prays to a litany of saints to help deal with all that life throws their way—including alcoholism, marital discord, illness and death—all while adjusting to their new circumstances as “Americans.” The narrator, a woman trapped in a subservient role supporting her husband, suffers in silence as the men completely disregard her in life-changing decisions. Recounting her family’s attempts to balance a traditional, more conservative culture with the new and exciting one in their adopted homeland, she is forced to reconsider gender roles, assimilation and religion.

Ticos living in the United States return to their native country in two of the three novellas in this thought-provoking collection. They discover it’s not the “Switzerland of Central America,” the perfect country with good healthcare, education and no standing army. In “Las Tres Marías,” three sisters raised in the comparative freedom of Massachusetts who return to live in their parents’ home country are barely teenagers when they’re labeled gringas and “doomed to become sluts.” In “La Familia,” Juan Manuel has made a life for himself in Chicago, but when his mother calls him home because his brother has been arrested as a terrorist, he faces an uncomfortable reckoning with his country’s involvement in regional violence as the Cold War spreads to Latin America.

Revealing the cultural dissonance experienced by immigrants, Diana Rojas’ characters grapple with their self-perception as they consider what they’re supposed to be and who they want to be. Issues of individualism versus community, loyalty to a distant homeland and a divided sense of identity pepper this intriguing debut.

About the author:

Diana Rojas has written in everything from large daily newspapers to niche newsletters, covering topics from untimely deaths and school board meetings, to housing and sustainability issues. She grew up in Connecticut and New Jersey and has lived in five different countries. Diana has tried her hand at fundraising, real estate, gardening and child rearing, but despite her NYU journalism degree, she never expected to write a book. Litany of Saints is her first fiction. She lives, taxed and unrepresented, in Washington, DC.

Preorder Litany of Saints here!

The conversation will be moderated by Laura Scalzo.

Laura Scalzo is the author of two novels, The Speed of Light in Air, Water, and Glass, prasied as 'lyrical and insightful,' and American Arcadia, 'a gorgeous riff of a New York City novel.' Her shorter work has appeared in various literary magazines including Had, Ellipsis Zine, Reflex Fiction, and the Grace&: Gravity Series. She wa a 2023 Chautauqua Writer-in-Residence and is a 2024 recipient of a DC Arts Grant. She is a graduate of Syracuse University after which she held a variety of jobs including wiatress, office temp, copywriter, Eurodollar broker on the Japanese Desk, and energy commodities derivatives broker. She's lived in Washington DC for 20 years where she and her husband raised their two children. Find out more at laurascalzo.com.

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