That’s right, the ebook version is out. The print version is slightly delayed due to issues to Ingram Spark that may or may not be related to the pos-Covid printing market issues (short version: big printing facilities closed doors and Ingram started getting huge assignments they were not designed for, what means delays for Indy published novels like mine).
The main point of this post, however, is not to talk about the book per se. You can read a summary on the Amazon link above (or here, if you don’t want to go back). You can see this review published on Tor.com a few weeks ago. You can see the reasons how and why I wrote this novel on Latinx Heritage Month Book Fest Instagram. What you are not going to find anywhere is why should you bother to read a dark satire when we are going through a historic moment that feels like a dark satire. Wouldn’t that be a downer and exhaust you emotionally when you already have so little emotional energy to spare? A little like being asked to play with a toy garbage truck when you are currently trapped in the crammed container of an actual garbage truck, as you try to stay afloat amid all the filth while, at the same time, you are giving your best to not allow the trash compactor within the container to turn you into mush.
Well, there is the thing: reading satire when the world is burning isn’t redundant. Think about how successful Jordan Peele’s Get Out was just after the Orange Fuckturd got elected, or, if you are old enough, the success of 9 to 5 back in the1980s, just before the Reagan administration started, or, if you are really, really old like Charlize Theron in The Old Guard, Aristophanes’ Lysistrata during the pinnacle of the Peloponnesian war. What these two films and one play have in common? They provide the viewer with a sense of catharsis, as you can release, through the investments in the narrative, your restrained emotions and let them burn and explode. Because shielding your mental health against a morally warped power structure in place that is deliberately trying to corrode your mind through social gaslighting can only get you so far. You need a release: satire, which is not a Carnival mirror labyrinth reflection of a social problems. Satire is the antidote. It conveys truths, perspectives and angles that you probably didn’t consider before as satire – or at least a good satire -, is counter-intuitive.
Illimani Ferreira 