The Sons of El Rey

Espinoza (Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime) returns to fiction with the arresting story of an elderly wrestler’s last days. Ernesto Vega is visited while in hospice care by his son, Freddy; his gay grandson, Julian; the ghost of his wife, Elena; and a manifestation of his lucha libre persona, El Rey Coyote. Elena and El Rey Coyote press Ernesto to reexamine his life and his competing devotions to wrestling, his marriage, and his close childhood friend Julián Tamez. Meanwhile, Freddy, who once performed as El Rey Coyote Jr., agonizes over having to permanently shutter his father’s East Los Angeles gym, which never bounced back after the pandemic lockdowns, and Julian, an underpaid community college professor, chafes at being fetishized by other men for the color of his skin. The seamlessly interwoven story lines bring each character to vivid life, and Espinoza shines in the lucha libre scenes (“The crowd gasping, unmoving as they witnessed the flurry of leaps and jumps, the swirling colors and lights, these men doing such incredible things, things no mortal was ever expected to do”). This is a knockout. Agent: Eleanor Jackson, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. (June)