Advance Literary Praise
“Neruda on the Park strikes all the right notes—captivating characters, lyrical language, and a storyline that captures your imagination and refuses to let go. Combining all this with insights that linger and questions that challenge, Cleyvis Natera makes an unforgettable debut!”
–Tayari Jones, Women’s Prize for Fiction and Aspen Words Literary Prize author of An American Marriage
“Neruda on the Park is unlike anything I’ve ever read before. . . It is as poignant and perceptive as it is sexy and thrilling, the rare book that manages to be chilling, fun, and profound all at once. A remarkable feat of imagination from a wholly original writer.”
–Naima Coster, New York Times bestselling author of What’s Mine and Yours
“Tenderly written, Neruda on the Park is an insightful narrative that sifts through the layers of the family, lovers, and places we choose to find home in.”
-Elizabeth Acevedo, winner of the National Book Award
“What Natera has given us with Neruda on the Park is a book so honest, so implicating, so liberating that it is at once beautiful and terrifying. . . Neruda on the Park is a loud triumph that caresses like a whisper.”
-Robert Jones, Jr., New York Times bestselling author of The Prophets
“A powerful, compelling novel with the grit of Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place, the fierce insights of The Awakening, and exploration of immigrant mothers and daughters of Joy Luck Club. Natera is the real thing: a guerrera on paper, a warrior storyteller, who had me in her thrall from beginning to end. A novel that speaks to so many of the current challenges confronting our global community and does so with generosity, moral imagination, grace, and—never to be downplayed—wickedly good, page-turning storytelling.”
–Julia Alvarez, author of How the García Girls Lost their Accent and Afterlife
“Neruda on the Park is a dazzling triumph. Every beat of Natera’s gorgeous prose pulses with urgency, humanity, and a whole lot of heart.”
-Zakiya Dalila Harris, New York Times bestselling author of The Other Black Girl
“Cleyvis Natera has written a powerful and arresting novel with unforgettable characters. Neruda on the Park is the book we need and the reason I read.”
-Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana
“Armed with wit and a warm sense of humor, Natera deftly scales questions as huge as the luxury building that looms over her characters’ lives. A beautifully observed and propulsive debut.”
-Dawnie Walton, author of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
“Cleyvis Natera’s novel, which artfully, imaginatively, convincingly explores home and the lengths one goes to protect it, love and womanhood, class and the promise of the American dream, is a compelling, crucial work of fiction.”
-Mitchell S. Jackson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Survival Math
“Neruda on the Park is a lush, beautifully layered look at class, culture, and change. Natera’s prose is intricate, tender, and perfectly calibrated—the Guerrero family will stay with me forever. This is a tremendous debut novel from a profoundly gifted writer.”
-Kimberly King Parsons, National Book Award longlisted author of Black Light
“You know that rare novel that becomes your truest friend? That makes new cities, new years and new lives possible? Neruda on the Park is that novel. A debut so assured, so tender, so irresistible that you will wonder where it’s been all your life. Natera captures the white-hot fires that bind mothers and daughters together with a fearlessness that is its own kind of wisdom. Neruda on the Park, like its author, is a revelation.”
-Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
“Neruda on The Park is clear-sighted and full of heart as it traces all the ways a community—and family—can fall apart and seek their way back to each other”
-Gabriela Garcia, New York Times bestselling author of Of Woman and Salt
“Natera is a writer to watch. Her excellent debut novel is lyrical, absorbing, and slyly funny.”
-Jenny Offill, New York Times bestselling author of Weather