Guatemalan Rhapsody: Stories by Jared Lemus
A medicine man offers healing through sacrifices to the patron saint of cigarettes and alcohol. A group of orphaned brothers craft fake construction sites to rob unsuspecting motorists. Two friends vie for tattoo artist fame while using their own and each other’s skin as canvas. A movie crew filming in a small Guatemalan town upend the relationships between locals. A long-distance trucker hiding his addiction takes his toddler on a dangerous drive.
Guatemalan Rhapsody is full of characters and situations that crackle with tension, desire, and hunger for something just out of grasp. Each story comes alive in vivid color from its first words, with gripping settings across Guatemala and the Guatemalan diaspora in the U.S. Jared Lemus brilliantly interrogates themes of Guatemalan heritage, masculinity, responsibility, and loyalty in his debut short story collection, proving himself a dazzling new writer to watch.
