How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water

From the author of the Women's Prize-shortlisted Dominicana comes an inventive, funny and deeply moving new novel about a Dominican-American woman who has lost her job, her son, and her sense of purpose but is fighting to get it all back.

Write this down: Cara Romero wants to work.

Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. Set up with a job counselor, Cara instead begins to narrate the story of her life. Over the course of twelve sessions, Cara recounts her tempestuous love affairs, her alternately biting and loving relationships with her neighbor Lulu and her sister Angela, her struggles with debt, gentrification and loss, and, eventually, what really happened between her and her estranged son, Fernando. As Cara confronts her darkest secrets and regrets, we see a woman buffeted by life but still full of fight.

Structurally inventive and emotionally kaleidoscopic, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is Angie Cruz's most ambitious and moving novel yet, and Cara is a heroine for the ages.

'One of my favorite books I have read in years' Quiara Alegria Hudes, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter of In the Heights

(P) 2022 Macmillan Audio