Some of my favorite books this year have been by authors whose debut fiction isn’t their first book. Kaveh Akbar published several books of poetry before his ambitious debut novel, Martyr!. Ananda Lima also released a poetry collection before her incredible fiction debut, Craft: Stories I Wrote For the Devil. And Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s nonfiction book, The Undocumented Americans, was a finalist for The National Book Award before her sharp, propulsive debut novel, Catalina.
I’d missed The Undocumented Americans when it came out—a book with the misfortune of a March 2020 release date—and read it in advance of picking up Catalina (another of my favorite reads of the year, I must add). While the subject matter is both important and absorbing, that book truly comes to life because of Cornejo Villavicencio’s writing style, which is both intimate and engaging (‘engaging’ is what I’m calling her direct, colorful language, including her unabashed use of the F-bomb. ‘Refreshing’ would also work). So I knew before starting Catalina it’d likely have a strong voice, yet I still found myself immediately lulled by the novel’s narrator and protagonist, cynical (with reason) Catalina Ituralde:
In the summer of 2010, the year Instagram launched, there was a cricket invasion in Queens. Something to do with global warming and, if you believed my grandfather, yet another sign that America was lagging behind Cuba in scientific advances. He was not a communist, he just had a bit of a thing for Fidel. Dozens of crickets were under the floors and in the walls of our apartment. The landlord sent an exterminator, but it had little effect on their fornication. The sound was intolerably loud. My grandfather said that back in Ecuador, summer nights in Esmeraldas were so loud, it sounded like, well, what it was—a beach and a jungle. I had not been to Esmeraldas, where he spent every summer as a child. Like him, I was undocumented, so I could not go to Esmeraldas, probably ever. I would probably never see the Amazon, and thus I would never really know a summer night. He would always have that over me. He knew in his flesh what I could only read about and I read a lot.
With such a whip-smart narrator, the reader—or at least this reader—will follow Catalina wherever she goes. The narrative voice is not only strong, but intimate. So many short novels these days lack warmth—I find myself admiring their minimalistic prose while not feeling close to the characters. Not so with Catalina: this character comes alive through all her random musings. Despite being with her for less than two hundred pages; we don’t only learn her insecurities, her hopes and wishes, but we also get her thoughts on historical figures, pop culture, literature, fashion, and phone sex. And with this kind of intimacy comes a feeling of expansiveness, yet with a level of compression that’s admirable.
Like Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina immigrated to the United States as a child, grew up in Queens, and attended Harvard. The novel is set over one year in college student Catalina’s life, broken into four sections: Summer, Fall Semester, Winter Break, and Spring Semester. I’m admittedly not big on ‘campus novels,’ but thankfully, Catalina doesn’t read like one. Or at least not in the classic claustrophobic way many are. This novel is very much about Catalina’s relationship with her grandparents, whose presence looms even as she’s away at school—but it’s also about her navigating relationships and her passions and ambitions amid the limitations she faces being undocumented. Not to mention being Latine, especially at Harvard.
Lately, I hear a lot of writers complain about plot, about how novels don’t need one. And while I don’t think they do, I’m someone who loves a good plot. And while Catalina has one, part of what’s so great about this novel is its slow emergence. The plot starts off so subtly, I didn’t notice it at first—too lulled by the narrator’s voice—but it builds and builds into what ultimately makes a good ending: as the saying goes, “surprising yet inevitable.” Some will likely disagree, and take issue with the ending. But I’d imagine even those readers wouldn’t regret picking up this novel. So is the beauty of a slim one written so sharply—the time investment in reading it is minimal. Here is a book you can read in a day.
It’s not just the size of the novel, it’s also that compelling voice full of humor. It’s not often a novel makes me laugh out loud, but I did as I tore through this one. People often talk about novels they couldn’t put down, and I try to avoid that description in my criticism, but reader, I couldn’t put this book down. I read on my lunch break, as I unloaded the dishwasher, as I cooked dinner. I was spellbound by this smart, yet deeply affecting novel. Indeed, Catalina is one of my favorite books of the year.
FICTION
Catalina
by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
One World
Published July 23rd, 2024
