The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez
by Rudy Ruiz
Narrated by Johnny Rey Diaz
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Pub Date Sep 22 2020 | Archive Date Feb 22 2022
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Description
In the 1950s, tensions remain high in the border town of La Frontera. Penny loafers and sneakers clash with boots and huaraches. Bowling shirts and leather jackets compete with guayaberas. Convertibles fend with motorcycles. Yet amidst the discord, young love blooms at first sight between Fulgencio Ramirez, the son of impoverished immigrants, and Carolina Mendelssohn, the local pharmacist’s daughter. But as they’ll soon find out, their bonds will be undone by a force more powerful than they could have known.
Thirty years after their first fateful encounter, Fulgencio Ramirez, RPh, is conducting his daily ritual of reading the local obituaries in his cramped pharmacy office. After nearly a quarter of a century of waiting, Fulgencio sees the news he’s been hoping for: his nemesis, the husband of Carolina Mendelssohn, has died.
A work of magical realism, The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez weaves together the past and present as Fulgencio strives to succeed in America, break a mystical family curse, and win back Carolina’s love after their doomed youthful romance. Through enchanting language and meditations about the porous nature of borders—cultural, geographic, and otherworldly—The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez offers a vision of how the past has divided us, and how the future could unite us.
A Note From the Publisher
Advance Praise
“With an atmospheric setting and beguiling prose, lavish details, fascinating, well-developed characters, and charming elements of magic realism, Ruiz conjures a magnetic story about the kindness of strangers, solid familial bonds, bold perseverance, and steadfast love.”
-Booklist (starred review)
“Rudy Ruiz perfectly captures the thunderclap of true love and the magical, terrible, and beautiful ways its storm plays out through the lives of his characters…A novel of redemption that will leave you in joyful tears.”
-Charlie Lovett, New York Times bestselling author of Escaping Dreamland and The Bookman’s Tale
“Rudy Ruiz’s first novel is told with wit and verve. Entertaining and dramatic, this novel will delight readers and leave you wanting more.”
-Nora Comstock de Hoyos, PhD, founder, Las Comadres Para Las Américas
“A romantic and sentimental tale, The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez explores what bad choices and the ravages of time do to a border couple’s love. The many plot twists keep the reader guessing about that age-old question: Can you ever return to what you have lost in the past?”
-Sergio Troncoso, author of A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son
Marketing Plan
• Regional author tour
• National print reviews and features
• NPR interviews
• Literary-fiction buzz mailing
• National print and online advertising
• Op-eds and original essays
• Social media campaign
• Spanish-language edition simultaneous release promotion
• Author website: RudyRuiz.com
Available Editions
EDITION | Audiobook, Unabridged |
ISBN | 9781982604271 |
PRICE | $19.95 (USD) |
DURATION | 10 Hours, 52 Minutes, 42 Seconds |
Links
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this audiobook.. Enjoyed the narrator. Great job narrating this story. The characters very likable.
Loved it!!
Here's why:
Mexican culture + magical realism + slow burn, star-crossed love story + no clichés
I know how infuriating it is when any Mexican/Latin American writer is straight away compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I won't do that But the beginning of the novel reminded me straight away with Love in the Time of Cholera because at the very beginning Fulgencio (I love that name), a son of mexican immigrants, is scanning the obituaries in the newspaper wishing to see the man who married the woman he loved dead (There are other spoilers to confirm my impression but I'm not going to share those). And when Fulgencio realizes that the source of all his sorrows is a "maldición" or a curse that has befallen his family long ago and made love impossible to sustain. Then we are whisked on an adventure with Fulgencio and some amiable ghosts to lift the curse.
But Ruiz is a talent of his own.. He spins the magic throughout the story in a firm way without any conveniences masquerading as part of that magic. The story holds firm and is quite enjoyable throughout.
The audiobook, however, has one great flaw. It was too slow. I started playing it at 1.25x the speed half way through. While galley audiobooks are played solely on the NetGalley app, the app still wants for much though to facilitate the listening experience. And although I liked the narrator, Johnny Rey Diaz, and despite the fact that the narrative parts are supposed to be neutral to allow the characterization to come to life, it was flat at times. It came to life only on the tongues of characters.
I'm very curious about what Rudy Ruiz might write next. I'm hoping to see a Mexican/Latin American story outside the canon of migrancy.
Thank you so much NetGalley and Blackstone Audiobooks for this experience.
I enjoy magical realism, and this book was a joy! I loved the rollercoaster ride that was Fulgencio and Carolina's love story. It was full of ups and downs and really made for a dramatic romance. The characters had strong personalities that sometimes help and sometimes hinder themselves and each other, but it made the reader root for them all the more!
I was excited to reach for this audiobook as a highlighted new Latinx release. What a beautiful tale of love, rejection, class and passage of time in Mexico and the US.
While I don't usually reach for books with ANY kind of fantasy or magical realism elements, this one hit it out of the park. In this novel, our main character Fulgencio Ramirez attempts to win back the love of Carolina Mendelssohn - the love of his life from thirty years ago whose husband has just died. Fulgencio and Carolina come from very different social classes and are separated by a border, literal and metaphorical, which is another theme thoroughly examined in this novel. The writing is vivid and imaginative in a way that managed to transport me straight to La Frontera.
In addition to the fascinatic magical tale, narration in the audiobook version is truly brilliant. I loved how the narrator was able to accentuate the right moments and bring raw emotions to life.
*Thank you to the Publisher for a free advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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