How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water

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What to expect

From the author of the Women's Prize-shortlisted Dominicana comes an inventive, funny and deeply moving new novel about a Dominican-American woman who has lost her job, her son, and her sense of purpose but is fighting to get it all back.

Write this down: Cara Romero wants to work.

Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. Set up with a job counselor, Cara instead begins to narrate the story of her life. Over the course of twelve sessions, Cara recounts her tempestuous love affairs, her alternately biting and loving relationships with her neighbor Lulu and her sister Angela, her struggles with debt, gentrification and loss, and, eventually, what really happened between her and her estranged son, Fernando. As Cara confronts her darkest secrets and regrets, we see a woman buffeted by life but still full of fight.

Structurally inventive and emotionally kaleidoscopic, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is Angie Cruz's most ambitious and moving novel yet, and Cara is a heroine for the ages.

'One of my favorite books I have read in years' Quiara Alegria Hudes, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter of In the Heights

(P) 2022 Macmillan Audio

Critics Review

Beautifully written and entertaining
Irish Examiner
Cruz once again offers a fresh glimpse of immigration, womanhood, aspiration and gentrification . . . Twelve sessions with a job counsellor provide the framework for Cruz's endearing portrait of a fierce, funny woman . . . told in Cara's unfailingly frank, sometimes hilarious, voice
Washington Post
A taut and poignant novel centred around a 56-year-old Dominican woman grappling with motherhood, acceptance and loss in the midst of the Great Recession . . . Cruz prioritises the importance of seeing an individual's humanity even within the most impersonal of systems
New York Times
An acerbic look at the effects that gentrification, recession and racial profiling have had on the immigrant experience
Irish Times
A story that weaves the impersonal enormity of the system with a deeply personal, believable and engaging narrative . . . By turns hilarious, tender and moving, this short novel packs a mighty big punch
Business Post
Will have you laughing line after line, even when you wonder if you should be (The answer is always yes! ) . . . Cruz's new novel aims for the heart, and fires
Los Angeles Times
Cruz's latest novel blazes with brilliance, from its first-person character development to its structure to its deliciously slow reveals . . . you can't help but root for Cara
The AV Club
Direct and full of personality . . . turning these pages is like bring invited into a neighbour's kitchen for a good gossip session . . . Cruz has created an unforgettable character in Cara
New York Journal of Books
A tender and quintessentially American portrait
Publishers Weekly

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