My Train Leaves at Three - Large Print by Natalie Guerrero (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A sharp, poignant story of a woman trying to rise from family pressure and grief to make it as a Broadway star, from a striking new voice.

After her sister Nena's sudden death, Xiomara, an Afro-Latina singer and actress born and raised in Washington Heights, is numb. With her sister gone, Xiomara is painfully close to thirty, living in a tiny apartment with her ultra-Catholic Puerto Rican mother, and having the same shitty sex with the same shitty men that she's been entertaining for years. Behind on rent despite two minimum-wage jobs, one of which involves singing show tunes while serving pancakes to tourists at Ellen's Stardust Diner, Xiomara is bitingly cynical, especially in her grief, and barely treading water.

But when a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to audition for Manny Santos, the most charismatic director of the moment, falls into her lap, it seems to Xiomara like a second chance to pursue the dream she thought she'd left behind has finally come. Meanwhile, something about Santi, a new coworker at the print shop where she spends half of her days photocopying other performers' headshots, starts to tug at the threads of her apathy. Nothing is simple, and soon Xiomara finds herself interacting with the ugliest sides of the industry and the powerful men that control it. While Xiomara grapples with the hard truth that sometimes the closer you are to your dreams, the further away from yourself you become, she is forced to ask herself if she has what it takes to build a new shiny life without losing the truth of her old one.

With hopeful spirit and unapologetic energy, My Train Leaves at Three asks big questions about grief, shame, sexuality, family, and love. This is a coming-of-age story about the balancing act between moving on and moving forward.

Review Quotes

"Set in Washington Heights, My Train Leaves at Three follows Xiomara, an Afro-Latina singer and actress grieving the loss of her sister while struggling to stay afloat and pursue her dreams of Broadway. Dreams that feel increasingly difficult to achieve while staying true to herself in the face of a shallow industry. The novel explores grief and the challenge of balancing self-authenticity with the pressures of success."--TODAY

"With My Train Leaves at Three Natalie Guerrero has entered the proverbial room, belted out her opening number and dropped the mic, leaving the reader not just enthralled and delighted with this debut . . . it contains [a] wondrous piece of magic: the city of New York. My heart sung with this stirring reminder that anything is possible in this wild city."--Xochitl Gonzalez, author of Anita de Monte Laughs Last

"My Train Leaves at Three is an act of alchemy: Guerrero takes the numbness of grief and the mangled aspirations of youth, and transforms them into moments and characters that are searingly alive, achingly gorgeous in their hard-won wisdom."--Torrey Peters, author of Stag Dance

"A breezy, verve-y addition to the New York stories canon. Xiomara, the book's insecure underdog, is a grieving, self-sabotaging train wreck, and while it's fun to see the many ways she self-destructs, it's even more rewarding when the hardworking dreamer pushes through to softer places and truer connections. For readers who want to find love and success, Xiomara offers a hard-earned how-to and entertaining how-not-to."-- Quiara Alegría Hudes, author of My Broken Language

"My Train Leaves at Three is an extraordinary undertaking, and Natalie Guererro has debuted center stage as an unmissable talent. With electric charm and that unmistakable, absurdist wit reserved for New Yorkers born-and-bred, Xiomara weaves us through the tunnels of her grief, the complexity of ambition, and the necessity of hope."--John Manuel Arias, author of the national bestseller Where There Was Fire

About the Author

Natalie Guerrero is a writer based in Los Angeles, California. Her writing has been featured in publications such as Electric Literature, Byline, Goop, and Blavity. Natalie's long-form work includes "On Silence," an essay published in Hungry Hearts (Dial Press), and Walking in My Joy (Amistad), an essay collection by actress Jenifer Lewis that Natalie co-authored. She has previously held positions at HarperCollins, WME Books, and Macro/M88. In her "free time," she can be found walking her dog, Tupac, in the hills of Los Feliz.