High Spirits
Short Stories on Dominican Diaspora
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Pura Belpré Honor Book
BEST OF THE YEAR
Chicago Review of Books · Kirkus
Publishers Weekly Flying Start
Meet the Belén family—a collection of heart-wrenching and unforgettable characters who live here, there, and somewhere with a taste of magic.
High Spirits is a symphony of eleven interconnected stories that stretches across generations and borders—the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, New Jersey, New York and the fictional town of Hidalpa. From a ten-year-old confronting her first heartbreak to a teenager riding out a lockdown drill in a Paterson high school.
This is a story collection about the things we inherit: love that's fierce but complicated, silence that speaks louder than words, and the weight of machismo passed down like an heirloom nobody wanted. It's about identity split across two countries, mental health nobody in the family wants to name out loud, and the kind of nostalgia that aches when you’re homesick for a place you've never been to before.
Told in vivid, poetic prose woven through with Dominican Spanish, Camille Gomera-Tavarez has crafted a debut short story collection that Kirkus calls "authentic and immersive" and Booklist calls "deeply personal and relatable."
Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo, Sandra Cisneros, Angie Cruz, and Yaa Gyasi—this is a family saga that will make you laugh, break your heart, and leave you wanting to call your own abuela.
Ages 12 and up | 224 pages
P R A I S E
★ “Authentic and immersive…A labor of love imbued with dedication to family.”
—Kirkus (starred)
★ “Deeply personal and relatable. Steeped in nostalgia and harsh but fierce love, this is a memorable family saga in its own right.”
—Booklist (starred)
★ “Full of vivid and poetic imagery… settings worthy of drinking in, and thematic material ripe for contemplation about identity, intergenerational memory, and patriarchy and toxic masculinity, Gomera-Tavarez’s soulfully crafted debut is a sensitive, intrinsically feminist work.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred)
“A magical and unflinching look at the Dominican Diaspora”
—Dominican Writers Association
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In an author's note, Gomera-Tavarez notes that her debut collection "started as an exploration of machismo with a dash of magic, inspired by the tradition of lo real maravilloso in the Americas." Housing 11 interconnected short stories "on Dominican Diaspora," the Dominican American author's emotionally sophisticated creation follows a narrative throughline via multiple generations and members of the extended Belén family. Shifting readers to different time periods and locales, including the family's store in a fictional pre-automobile-era Dominican Republic town and a lockdown in a contemporary New Jersey high school, each story utilizes close third-person tellings and serves as a snapshot of the family's broader history. Full of vivid and poetic imagery ("Each slice of wet newspaper a little bit of the truth, hardening into a fragile shell over time"), settings worthy of drinking in, and thematic material ripe for contemplation about identity, intergenerational memory, and patriarchy and toxic masculinity, Gomera-Tavarez's soulfully crafted debut is a sensitive, intrinsically feminist work. Includes an author's note and a family tree hand-drawn by the author. Ages 12–up.
