Archive of Unknown Universes

A pair of Salvadoran American Harvard students attempt to uncover their family histories with the aid of a time-bending experimental device in Reyes’s marvelous debut novel (after the collection There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven). It’s 2018, and Ana Flores and her boyfriend, Luis Guzmán, are preparing for their joint research trip to Havana and San Salvador. At the latter destination, Ana hopes to trace the paths of her family members and understand how their country’s civil war has shaped Salvadorans’ collective memory. To aid her research, Ana routinely uses the Defractor, an experimental AI video device that allows its user to see alternate histories. Her use of the technology causes tension with Luis, who is ethically opposed to it. Meanwhile, Luis hopes their stop in Havana will help him uncover the truth about his great uncle Neto, a shadowy Salvadoran revolutionary. A parallel narrative set in 1978 San Salvador follows a forbidden love affair between Neto and his Nicaraguan boyfriend, Rafael, both of whom work as document forgers for their countries’ revolutionary forces. Through unflinching depictions of government-sanctioned disappearances and other atrocities, Reyes powerfully excavates the rippling effects of the Salvadoran civil war on his characters. Equally remarkable is his depiction of tech’s alluring yet dangerous frontier, which also affords the narrative a bit of fun (Ana’s Defractor interlocutor is an avatar of Alanis Morisette, who begins answering one question by saying “you oughta know”). Readers will be riveted. Agent: Aemilia Phillips, Stuart Krichevsky Literary. (July)