A Desert Between Two Seas - (Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction) by A Muia (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Set in the crumbling Spanish missions of nineteenth-century Baja California, this mythic novel in linked stories follows two grief-stricken people as haunted as the desolate chapels around them: a priest who caused the drowning of a native boy by compelling him to fish for pearls, and a deaf woman trying to outrun her murderous reputation as a pistolera. Though the stories span landscapes, villages, characters, and decades, the heart of the novel is Baja California itself--a stark land of cactus and creosote, of russet canyons and splintered wastes of rock--where people living in the shadow of ruined missions seek redemption on an inhospitable peninsula forsaken even by its priests.

Review Quotes

A beautiful and meaningful collection of stories portraying an era we have needlessly forgotten . . . a capturing of our timeless matters of the heart: faith, loss, betrayal, yearning, and the ragged hot rock-strewn desert path that is the way to redemption. I can think of no more worthy collection to wear Flannery O'Connor's mantle.--Bret Lott "author of Jewel"

Muia's language is like her setting: sparse and beautiful. She writes with emotional restraint, her stories driven by details and images that feel unexpected and shocking and new, and by the actions of her compelling characters. . . . Such is the world of Muia's collection, a world in which love and violence, survival and hope, live side by side. Reading A Desert between Two Seas is an immersive experience, one that I am delighted my fellow lovers of story and history, of vivid characters and setting, will soon have also.--Lori Ostlund "author of After the Parade"

Muia paints a chapter of our continent's history that is tragic and disturbing, but does so with a sense of nuance and generosity that finds the beauty and humanity even in the most brutal events.--Mary Kenagy Mitchell "Executive Editor, Image Journal"

Like the far tolling of a bell, Muia's stories are reminiscent of tale, legend, and fable. Stark and moving, unsparing and compassionate, her work is grounded in history but suspended in no particular time . . . these are spellbinding myths to get lost in.--Robert Clark "author of In the Deep Midwinter: A Novel"

Muia's voice is essential. These stories are fire, and this book is powerful. Your favorite book is waiting to meet you.--Luis Alberto Urrea "author of Goodnight, Irene: A Novel"

About the Author

A. MUIA is a Pushcart Prize nominee whose work has been anthologized in The Orison Anthology. Her stories and articles have appeared in the Baltimore Review, the Beloit Fiction Journal, Chicago Review, Image Journal, Water Stone Review, West Branch, AWP's Writer's Chronicle, and other journals. Find her online at www.amuia.net.