Loca

Heredia debuts with a potent narrative of two friends in the Bronx attempting to break free of the bonds, internal and external, that hold them back. Sal, a gay 25-year-old Dominican man, is excited by the prospect of a museum tour guide job. But after he receives a letter inviting him to come in for an interview (“a little American dream folded into an envelope”), he doubts his prospects and is too afraid to go. At a gay bar, Sal meets Vance and they fall in love. Eventually, he gets a job working with kids at a garden, but he’s fired for kissing Vance there. Added to Sal’s self-doubt and self-sabotage is the survivor’s guilt he carries over the murder of his best friend Yadiel back in the Dominican Republic. A parallel narrative follows Sal’s friend Charo, whose relationship with her baby daddy, Robert, hits the skids in part because she wants to spend more time with her queer friends. Eventually, she leaves Robert and their baby “to figure out who she is.” The narrative lacks momentum in places, but Heredia credibly chronicles Sal’s and Charo’s pain as well as their pleasures, as they attempt to find their ways in the world. Readers will look forward to seeing what Heredia does next. Agent: Meredith Kaffel Simonoff, Gernert Co. (Feb.)