Victoria Garza, author of forthcoming memoir THE FIELD (on sale: November 15; JackLeg Press) "the song of the sister who died by the sister who survived" (Barbara Cully, author of Desire Reclining). Focusing on themes of coping, loss, healing, the metaphysical, the Mexican-American diaspora, queer identity, and more, Garza's memoir is a story of emotional healing--for anyone who has experienced loss in any form. Each section of the memoir introduces a literary verse that has allowed Garza to unpack her grief in a new way and contextualize the story she is telling.
Kirkus Reviews writes: "The author illustrates, in observant, poetic prose, the reverberating effects that grief can have on a life, and the many ways that her family has coped with it. As she does so, she examines her protective mechanisms and peels back layers of guilt and sorrow to tenderly uncover revelations about herself." Beth Alvarado (author of Jillian in the Borderlands and Anxious Attachments) writes: "A tender and deep evocation of Mexican American culture."
Additional Advance Praise for THE FIELD:
This book is the song of the sister who died by the sister who survived. It is a distillation, a documentary whose milestones are marked by St. Teresa, Dickinson, Neruda, Dante, the Gospel of Thomas, and The Tibetan Book of the Dead. If you want to know how a family touches grief tenderly and respectfully as loss drills its terror, if you want to know how a ten-year-old confronts darkness, conducts a life, and delivers her heart back to its origins whole—read Garza's testimony, where a simple field in Ohio vibrates with the knowledge that the important matters weed themselves out and one is left with the essential nature of one's love.
—Barbara Cully, author of Desire Reclining, The New Intimacy, and Shoreline Series
At its Norse root, haunt, or heimta, means "to lead home." That sense of loss and longing infuses Victoria Garza's profound journey to make sense of a childhood tragedy. Grappling with guilt and trauma through vignettes as sharp and luminous as stained glass, The Field opens a space between memory and dream where angels walk among us and death becomes a door. Garza reminds us it's emotions that matter' and that grief is not an affliction, but a deep, abiding expression of love.
—Harrison Candelaria Fletcher, author of Finding Querencia: Essays from In Between.
About Victoria
For most of my professional writing career, I’ve written journalism, screenplays, documentaries, and multimedia content. Although an excerpt of The Field was published by Kore Press and won a completion grant from the Elisabeth George Foundation, I consider myself a new author and The Field, my first book. Accounts of death have, of course, a rich literary history. I believe my audience is the same audience moved by Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, Elisabeth McCracken’s An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, and the stunning French book, The Disappearance, by Genevieve Jurgensen, to name the ones that have moved me most.
I hold an M.A in Media Theory, History and Criticism from University of Arizona and an M.F.A in Film Production from the NYU's Graduate Institute of Film & Television. Currently, I'm a senior writer for Apple.
I live in the Bay Area with my wife Lisa, and our two children, Augustin and Dakota.
www.victoriagarza.net
