When Trying to Return Home, Jennifer Maritza McCauley
When Trying to Return Home, Jennifer Maritza McCauley
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When Trying to Return Home
Stories

Author: Jennifer Maritza McCauley

Narrator: Psalm Morant, Andréa Agosto

Unabridged: 5 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/09/2023

Synopsis

Profoundly moving and powerful, the stories in this collection dig deeply into the question of belonging. A young woman is torn between overwhelming love for her mother and the need to break free from her damaging influence during a desperate and disastrous attempt to rescue her brother from foster care. A man, his wife, and his mistress each confront the borders separating love and hate, obligation and longing, on the eve of a flight to San Juan. A college student grapples with the space between chivalry and machismo in a tense encounter involving a nun. And in 1930s Louisiana, a woman attempting to find a place to call her own chances upon an old friend at a bar and must reckon with her troubled past. Forming a web of desires and consequences that span generations, Jennifer Maritza McCauley’s Black American and Afro–Puerto Rican characters remind us that these voices have always been here, occupying the very center of American life—even if we haven’t always been willing to listen.

About Jennifer Maritza McCauley

Jennifer Maritza McCauley is a writer, poet, and professor. She has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Kimbilio, CantoMundo, and the Sundress Academy for the Arts. She holds an MFA from Florida International University and a PhD in creative writing and literature from the University of Missouri. The author of the cross-genre collection Scar On/Scar Off, she is an assistant professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

Reviews

Goodreads review by BookOfCinz on April 16, 2023

In Jennifer Maritza McCauley debut collection When Trying to Return Home we meet a cast of characters- mother in the midst of stealing her son back from a foster home, a nun in the process of leaving the convent, a son finding out the man living on the street is his brother, a father visiting Puet......more

Goodreads review by luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) on March 03, 2023

The thing is, Mama never loved neat. Her love was spread out, sloppy. It slathered everyone in her path and she didn’t care how it hit or who it hurt, as long as she was giving it. When Trying to Return Home is yet another collection of short stories that begins with a bang but peters out with ea......more

Goodreads review by Stephanie on February 01, 2023

ARC audiobook provided in exchange for an honest review. I really loved the narrators take on all the characters in this book! All the accents were perfect and I enjoyed all the parts in Spanish, it really brought these short stories to life for me! This book was very easy to connect with many aspect......more

Goodreads review by Tina on February 06, 2023

As you know I love short stories and I really enjoyed WHEN TRYING TO RETURN HOME by Jennifer Maritza McCauley. I absolutely loved the element of suspense in the opening story Torsion. It’s about a teen girl who’s trying to help her mother rescue her brother from foster care while grappling with her......more

Goodreads review by Nadia on February 01, 2023

Thanks to NetGalley and Catapult, Counterpoint Press, and Soft Skull Press, Counterpoint for allowing me to read this early. I am not really a short story reader but when they hover around areas of interest as well as multicultural, I like to give them a chance. These stories were quite good and had......more

Quotes

McCauley writes with a lovely lyricism and musicality, an adroitness of construction that brings a lightness to her heavier subjects. Within a crowded field of collections that explore family, motherhood and identity, this debut makes the case for one more.

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