Gloria - by Andrés Felipe Solano (Hardcover)

About the Book

"It is a bright spring Saturday: April 11, 1970. The famous Argentine singer Sandro is about to become the first Latin American to perform at Madison Square Garden, and Gloria will be one of the lucky attendees at what will be a legendary concert. At just twenty years old, the young woman walks through the electric streets of New York City full of hope and possibility. The disturbing images she recently encountered at her job at a photographic laboratory, the trauma of a father who was murdered when she was a child, and even the long-term prospects of her relationship with Tigre, her irascible boyfriend, are problems for another day. This day should be perfect and should last forever. Which it will, in surprising and unexpected ways. Five decades later, Gloria's son reflects on his mother's life and realizes that their formative years-imprinted as they are by sojourns in New York at exactly the same age-are a bridge between generations that draws the pair closer through a shared sense of longing and potential"--

Book Synopsis

"If I had to choose from all the world a writer to tell me a story--Andrés Felipe Solano would be at the top of my list. He's an enchanter, a journalist, and a seeker all at once. We've all been looking for the second coming of George Orwell. For some time it's seemed clear to me it happened in Colombia with Andrés Felipe Solano." --John Freeman

Centered around a real-life, historic concert at Madison Square Garden, this wide-ranging and nostalgic novel spans two continents and five decades as it charts the interlaced lives of a mother and son in New York City

It is a bright spring Saturday: April 11, 1970. The famous Argentine singer Sandro is about to become the first Latin American to perform at Madison Square Garden, and Gloria will be one of the lucky attendees at what will be a legendary concert. At just twenty years old, the young woman walks through the electric streets of New York City full of hope and possibility. The disturbing images she recently encountered at her job at a photographic laboratory, the trauma of a father who was murdered when she was a child, and even the long-term prospects of her relationship with Tigre, her irascible boyfriend, are problems for another day. This day should be perfect and should last forever. Which it will, in surprising and unexpected ways.

Five decades later, Gloria's son reflects on his mother's life and realizes that their formative years--imprinted as they are by sojourns in New York at exactly the same age--are a bridge between generations that draws the pair closer through a shared sense of longing and potential.

A novel of mothers and sons spanning New York City, Colombia, and Miami, Gloria is a sophisticated and daring excavation of a woman's life that asks us to consider how the choices we make in our youth reverberate throughout our possible futures.

Review Quotes

"[Gloria] captures the lightness, the wonder, the refreshing breath of youth's horizon. Like a melody, it leaves an impression but with a light touch." --Liliana Torpey, Asymptote Journal

"Vanderhyden's translation has plenty of lovely moments . . . While Gloria is a novel based on individual memories, it has a universal familiarity as well--never more so than in showing these lives that tragedy and violence might interrupt at any moment." --Cory Oldweiler, Southwest Review of Books

"Through this lyrical tale, finely translated, Solano provides singular insight into a pivotal moment for women as Gloria reaches for independence and fulfillment." --Booklist

"Magnetic . . . A vivid snapshot of rosy youth and innocence lost." --Publishers Weekly

"Gloria by Andrés Felipe Solano is a brilliant and moving book, a tribute to a time and a city--New York in 1970--and a portrait of a working woman from the perspective of a son. It is a book that I would like to have written and, since I did not write it, I tell everyone to read it." --Daniel Saldaña París, author of Planes Flying Over a Monster

"What an absolute pleasure! I reread Gloria right after finishing it--the narrative is unpredictable and inevitable and real. Solano has created a story that is metaphysically precise, giving us the prism of a woman's life from the inside out, and also true via gritty, exquisite details: lingerie shops, turntables, laundromats, Times Square french fries, lipstick on a cigarette--and a Kodak Instamatic. The rooms of Gloria's 'memory palace' are in fact 'immaculate, organized with monastic care, ' and we get to walk through them. This book is one life giving its heart to the rest of us." --Jardine Libaire, author of White Fur

About the Author

ANDRÉS FELIPE SOLANO is the author of the novels Sálvame, Joe Louis, Los hermanos Cuervo, and Cementerios de neón. He also published "Salario mínimo," an essay about his experience as a factory worker for six months. Corea, apuntes desde la cuerda floja, a nonfiction book about his life in South Korea, received the 2016 Premio Biblioteca de Narrativa Colombiana prize and was translated into Korean in 2018. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, McSweeney's, Words Without Borders, and Freeman's. He was featured in Granta 113: The Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists. He currently lives in Seoul.

WILL VANDERHYDEN is an award-winning translator who has translated several books for Open Letter, Deep Vellum, and Akashic.