Maria, Maria: & Other Stories

Title: Maria, Maria: & Other Stories
Author: Marytza K. Rubio
First Published: April 26, 2022
Publisher: Liveright
Pages: 240
Genre: Fantasy, Magical Realism, Short Stories
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
Rating:


Synopsis:

“The first witch of the waters was born in Destruction. The moon named her Maria.”

Set against the tropics and megacities of the Americas, Maria, Maria takes inspiration from wild creatures, tarot, and the porous borders between life and death. Motivated by love and its inverse, grief, the characters who inhabit these stories negotiate boldly with nature to cast their desired ends. As the enigmatic community college professor in “Brujería for Beginners” reminds us: “There’s always a price for conjuring in darkness. You won’t always know what it is until payment is due.” This commitment drives the disturbingly faithful widow in “Tijuca,” who promises to bury her husband’s head in the rich dirt of the jungle, and the sisters in “Moksha,” who are tempted by a sleek obsidian dagger once held by a vampiric idol.

But magic isn’t limited to the women who wield it. As Rubio so brilliantly elucidates, animals are powerful magicians too. Subversive pigeons and hungry jaguars are called upon in “Tunnels,” and a lonely little girl runs free with a resurrected saber-toothed tiger in “Burial.” A colorful catalog of gallery exhibits from animals in therapy is featured in “Art Show,” including the Almost Philandering Fox, who longs after the red pelt of another, and the recently rehabilitated Paranoid Peacocks.

Brimming with sharp wit and ferocious female intuition, these stories bubble over into the titular novella, “Maria, Maria”—a tropigoth family drama set in a reimagined California rainforest that explores the legacies of three Marias, and possibly all Marias. Writing in prose so lush it threatens to creep off the page, Rubio emerges as an ineffable new voice in contemporary short fiction.

Review

I’m a sucker for new short story collections with beautiful covers, I picked this book up instantly when I first laid eyes on it at the library. I was shocked to find myself struggling to finish this collection despite the low page count! Maria, Maria is a debut collection featuring darker stories oozing with magic and myth. It is a very witchy book, with many stories featuring brujería.

Rubio has a beautiful writing style and I think there is potential for her writing. I would read more of her work in the future I think, because the stories that were good were really good, Tijuca is easily an all-time favorite. This just ended up being one of the most hit-or-miss short story collections I think I’ve ever read and it’s a shame because there were a few good ones and one absolutely outstanding story. By the time I was reading the last and longest story, Maria, Maria I found myself struggling to stay invested, even feeling tempted to DNF despite being so close to the end which was a major bummer. I pushed through because I wanted to give the book a fair chance and see how the final story would wrap up, but I was left feeling undecided once I had finished the entire collection.

Individual Story Notes:

♥ Brujería for Beginners: This story was not a good start to this short story collection. It’s a quirky story written in the form of a lecture on brujería. It’s a rapid-fire narration reviewing various items and their uses while answering questions from students. The dialogue is entirely one-sided with no other speakers, so the conversation is implied. The narration is sassy and good for a few chuckles, but not very engaging overall. As a taster for the other stories, it’s alright, but it didn’t make me feel excited at all to read the other stories. A risky way to start off the anthology.

♥ Tijuca: The first two lines of this short story caught me off guard, they perfectly encapsulated the brutal beauty of this story. The writing was breathtaking and is easily one of the strongest stories in this collection. The story follows a recently widowed woman named Ada carrying out the final wishes of her late husband. It is beautifully macabre and a surprisingly romantic celebration of marriage even after death. Till death do us part.

♥ Tunnels: A historical piece centering on the horrifying racism brought about by California Proposition 187. This story is told in snapshots of the life of a family helmed by a father and Vietnam War Veteran. The story is a cutting condemnation of an unjust law that disproportionately targeted Latinos.

♥ Art Show: This one was cute and has a touch of humor, but did not have a lot of substance and was overall pretty forgettable.

♥ Clap If You Believe: I had a lot to unpack with this story and it took me time to think about it. This story features another bruja, the narrator’s aunt. The narrator is mystified and looks up to her aunt while the narrator’s mother is suspicious of and loathes their closeness. Both women want to protect the main character in their own way, and the ending of the story showcases a sort of quiet acceptance that they both have their hearts in the right place.

♥ Moksha: This was a clever little story about two sisters amusing themselves in a vampire museum. Though the sisters have a close bond, it becomes clear that it is not an even give-and-take relationship. The narrator is the younger of the two sisters and because of this, she will often acquiesce to her sister’s whims. I like the choice of the title as it captures the central theme of the story, with moksha meaning a release from the cycle of rebirth.

♥ Burial: Another standout story about a lonely girl that finds freedom with a resurrected saber-tooth tiger. It is sad but ultimately hopeful, the narrator never loses her sense of wonder in spite of the ugliness she experiences.

♥ Carlos Across Space and Time: The characters in the story attempt to make sense of a senseless death by way of a magic mirror, searching for a better future for a classmate.

♥ Paint by Numbers: Again another story that was more style over substance. It’s a quick snippet of horror.

♥ Maria, Maria: A longer story that borders on being a novella, split into four parts. The writing was beautiful and mythologized a family of Marias. There were parts that I enjoyed, but at other points the story dragged.

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