Terrestrial

A fiercely-poetic, tenderly-observed work of nonfiction that renders an intrepid portrait of young womens’ travels on the fringes of Mexico and the United States, by the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Liliana’s Invincible Summer

We come from far away and, all of a sudden, we no longer know where we are going.

In this new collection of genre-defying stories by Cristina Rivera Garza, a woman tours her old lover’s hometown after being abandoned by her, years earlier. Two girls ride a train in search of a lake that neither have confirmed exists. A group of workers build a temporary home, only to see it destroyed by the state. 

With little baggage and much bravado, the characters in Terrestrial hitchhike, migrate, take trains, wander or, at times, fly, to survive the mandates of patriarchy and capitalism. On dusty roads or by a lake turned suddenly ominous, they remain in close contact with the earth’s surface, sensing its wild promise and menacing enclosures, its degradation and enduring beauty.

As she did in her Pulitzer Prize winning memoir Liliana’s Invincible Summer, Rivera Garza forges new forms, experimenting with structure and time as she tails the young travelers with shimmering and honest prose. Combining journalism, novelistic writing, and themes of female freedom, gore capitalism, and class struggle, Terrestrial is a meditation about travel and distance, and our ties to the earth we tread on.