Praise for Vestiges of Courage

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“In language direct and wry, dancing between her family’s past and her children’s present, Mexico and California, English and Spanish, Vela makes us look—and hear and feel—the myriad forms of silencing and suffering visited upon women, children, immigrants, the poor, the unwell, and the unconforming by contemporary America’s preoccupation with border lines, color lines, and every other rigid norm of the clueless and the powerful.”

—Christine Hale, author of A Piece of Sky, A Grain of Rice: A Memoir in Four Meditations and Basil’s Dream: A Novel

 

 

“Crossing the borderlands between Mexico and the US, Mireya Vela has created an astringent collection of essays, with an unflinching honesty that burns through stories of cruelty and violence that threads through generations. In this pastiche of memoir stories, written with luminous, elegant sentences, we see the brave heart of a girl determined to survive and ultimately to thrive.”

—Sarah Van Arsdale, author of Towards Amnesia and Blue: A Novel

 

 

“Vela lights a fire. Some of her sentences burn. Others are capable of cutting. Her gorgeous essays leave the reader—for the better—bloodied.”

—Brad Kessler, author of Goat Song and Birds in Fall

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“The patriarchy needs its submissive women in order to know itself, but Mireya Vela subverts the animalistic desires and perpetual alpha-male apathy by powerfully illuminating the burning wisdom that fans the secret flames in female hearts.”

—Tim Cummings, author and actor

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“Mireya Vela writes to the bone. Her words cut through the gauzy untruths that divide us—about womanhood, about violence, about language, about justice—and celebrate the hard-won hope that’s stored in the body. These true stories will take your breath away. Read them.”

—Ana Maria Spagna, author of Uplake: Restless Essays of Coming and Going

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“This book may be called Vestiges of Courage, but there is nothing wispy about the bravery exhibited in these stunning essays—Vela’s courage rises, full force, off every single page.”

—Gayle Brandeis, author of The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving my Mother’s Suicide

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Mireya S. Vela writes about both the dark corners and dreamy escapes of childhood. Her voice is unique--as much poetry as prose at times--and always, always unflinching in it's realness. To use the author's own words, Vestiges of of Courage is "a wild call to hope." Unmissable.

--Ari Rosenschein, author of Coasting

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