Remedios

Fernando Granados is a university professor in financial trouble when a boyhood friend he hasn’t seen in thirty years reenters his life. Memo Galindo, now part of a notorious Mexican cartel, soon persuades Fernando to build a meth lab on his country property, just outside the ancient town of Remedios. Fernando’s strong-willed wife Sandra and their beloved 18-year-old son Félix each fall under Memo’s charismatic spell. The cascading family crisis plays out on a larger stage, from its roots in Guatemala’s civil war in the ’80s to corruption in the Guatemalan army and American DEA, in a country where even the forces of nature wreak vengeance.

Clearman, author of Concepción and the Baby Brokers ( “stories about hard choices borne of desperation and the stark delineations between classes”—Kirkus), offers a high adrenaline thriller about family, fear, secrets, and what happens when we make the wrong decisions for the right reasons. Remedios is a gripping, profoundly human story of love and betrayal.

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“In this world of almost constant terror, Clearman offers words of piercing poetry that can stir the soul. Fernando’s thoughts, in reflecting on the widening chasm in his relationship with his wife, quite simply and quite agonizingly portray the heartbreak of loss.”
—Heidi Mastrogiovanni, New York Journal of Books

“Deborah Clearman has written a tense, tragic, deeply authentic book that shares DNA with such cartel-tinged masterpieces as The Power of the Dog and Breaking Bad.”
—Ben Dolnick, author of The Ghost Notebooks

“A riveting journey through the savage and explosive world of the Latin American drug trade… This compelling page-turner was hard to put down and, even at the finish line, I was reluctant to leave Remedios behind.”
—Judy Chicurel, author of If I Knew You Were Going to be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go

“Deborah Clearman once again shows her keen understanding and delicate power of observation of life in rural Guatemala. I am still processing the multiple emotions evoked by this masterfully crafted novel.”
—Eduardo Juarez, Guatemalan author of Mariposas del vértigo and Serenatas al hastío; translator of Concepción and the Baby Brokers

Extras

Deborah Clearman in conversation with Guatemalan novelist and translator Eduardo Juárez for the Zoom launch of Remedios.

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