Day 82: There is a Rio Grande in Heaven

Today marks my fourth day in a row of posting a picture of a book I read and a short review. We will see how many days in a row I might be able to repeat this phenomenon.

Yesterday I finished Ruben Reyes Jr.’s story collection There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven. There are three themes that are found in all (or at least most of the stories):

1. The challenges migrants from Central America, especially El Salvador, and their families experience because they are migrants.
2. A future that is often dystopian with stories that are often surreal. For example, in “My Abuela, the Puppet,” the narrator’s grandmother slowly transforms into a marionette. 
3. Queerness.

Toward the end of the collection, the stories are arranged into a sort of choose your own adventure format. For those who did not encounter these books in the 1980s, each chapter ends with a choice: if you choose to climb the mountain turn to page 150 if you choose to take the trail turn to page 75, with the reader actively choosing the plot outcome. My only problem with Reyes using this format was that I was listening to the audiobook and following along in my kindle; the audiobook chose an option and kept reading, but I had a hard time following along in the ebook format.

Reyes’ book was a finalist for the 2025 Story Prize. The other finalist for this year was Ghost Pains by Jessi Jezewska Steven and the winner was Highway Thirteen by Fiona McFarlane. The Story Prize is given each year for an outstanding collection of short fiction; I have found the finalists and winners to be consistently excellent.

If you have an interest in the stories of migrants and their families and enjoy surreal dystopian elements, then I think you would enjoy There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven.