The Writer’s Center welcomes novelist Brooke Shaffner for a reading and discussion of her award-winning novel, Country of Under. Brooke is in conversation with Héctor Vaca Cruz, documentary photographer and community organizer.
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Brooke Shaffner’s novel Country of Under was published on April 9th. It won the 1729 Book Prize, was the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction runner-up, and was shortlisted for Dzanc Books’ Prize for Fiction and Black Lawrence Press’s Big Moose Prize. Brooke’s work has appeared in Scoundrel Time, The Rumpus, The Hudson Review, Marie Claire, BOMB, Litmosphere, Big Indie Books, Lost and Found: Stories from New York, The Lit Pub, and on Charlotte Readers Podcast. Brooke has received grants from the Arts & Science Council, United States Artists, and the Saltonstall Foundation and residencies from MacDowell, Ucross, Saltonstall, the Edward Albee Foundation, Jentel, I-Park, and VCCA. Brooke is bisexual and grew up part Garza, part Shaffner in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley. Her Garza grandfather was an undocumented immigrant from Mexico; her Shaffner grandfather was raised Mennonite. She founded Freedom Tunnel Press with her partner Niteesh Elias to publish artivist books that straddle borders. An excerpt of her memoir-in-progress won the Lit/South Award. Find more at brookeshaffner.com.
Héctor Vaca Cruz is a Latino documentary photographer who has lived in Charlotte since 2008. Born in New York and raised in South Carolina, he is of Ecuadorian and Puerto Rican heritage. As the son of immigrants living in the south, Héctor grew up always feeling different, like he did not fit in. He felt less valued than his white friends, many of whom came from upper middle-class and rich families. Because of this, he felt like he did not have a voice. Through photography, Héctor explores the themes of privilege, immigration, racism, nationalism, colorism, classism, and identity. He makes his images, to spark dialogue, in order to better understand these issues and find solutions. More importantly, his photos give a voice to those who have been stifled by society, based on privilege, prejudice, and oppression. Growing up in the skateboarding and punk rock culture, both of which influenced the direction of his career and art, Héctor found his voice. In college, he published his own zine to make his and others’ voices heard. For his day job, Héctor is a community organizer who empowers oppressed communities to lead the movement toward equity and systemic change. Héctor is also a member of the Charlotte-based Latinx artist-led OBRA Collective and was instrumental in the founding of the Visual and Performing Arts Center (VAPA).
About the Novel
Country of Under tells the becoming stories of two unforgettable characters: Pilar Salomé Reinfeld, raised by her undocumented father, a descendent of Bolivian Mennonites, in a Mexican-American community; and Carlos/Carla/Río Gomez, a gender fluid DREAMer raised by their grandmother in the same Texican bordertown—two intelligent, misfit teenagers carving out their place in the world.
Pilar, who is passionate and empathetic but painfully shy and withdrawn, and Río, who is bold and charming, meet in high school in 2001 and become each other’s family of choice. An act of violence propels them to get scholarships to colleges in New York and LA. On opposite coasts, they move through failed romances, revelations, and transformations; nunneries and drag cabarets; asylum trials and alternative medicine; subterranean explorations and Trans Latinx marches; and various assaults on, losses of, and re-creations of self. Even as their lives diverge, parallels emerge in their search for family, identity, freedom, artistic expression, and meaning. They become different people and remain true to each other.
A tragedy calls them back to the Rio Grande Valley, back to each other—their lives changed but still bound. Still mourning, Pilar returns to New York City with Río. She struggles to find a way forward and they drift apart. When Pilar’s decision to engage in a dangerous artivist act finally threatens to tear them apart, they struggle to do what they have done in their best moments: see the beauty in each other, even when the world does not. Country of Under is about the unending work of transcending borders to bear witness to the wild possibility within all of us.
Runner-up for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, Country of Under encompasses politicized subjects including the experiences of undocuqueer people, DREAMers, and asylees. But it is foremost a beautiful, compelling, and intimate portrait of the transformative power of friendship. Vivid, immersive depictions of Pilar and Río’s journeys blur the line between life and art, challenging readers to reject false dichotomies—between male and female, contemplation and engagement, existentialism and religion, and art, healing, and activism—and inhabit the spaces between them.
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