The Five Wounds

Winner of The Center for Fiction's 2021 First Novel Prize

'A gorgeously written, Franzen-calibre tale' O Magazine

In this vivid, darkly funny and beautifully rendered debut novel, Kirstin Valdez Quade brings to life the struggles of five generations of the Padilla family. Amadeo, struggling to stay off the bottle, Angel, his pregnant fifteen-year-old daughter, Yolanda, the family matriarch, reeling from a recent discovery, Angel's mother, who Angel isn't speaking to and Tio Tive, keeper of the family's history. But amid the challenges they face individually and together, it is Connor, Angel's baby, who might just be the one to save the family from themselves.