The five wounds

WINNER OF THE 2021 CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZEAn Amazon Best Book of April 2021Named one of the Most Anticipated Books of 2021 by Oprah Magazine, The Week, The Millions, and Electric Lit. July 2021 Book of the Month for Roxane Gay's Book ClubLonglisted for the PEN/ Hemingway AwardIt's Holy Week in the town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and thirty-three-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla is to play Jesus in the Good Friday procession.

He is preparing feverishly for this role when his fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep. Vivid, darkly funny, and beautifully rendered, The Five Wounds spans the baby's first year as five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo's mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discovery; Angel's mother, whom Angel isn't speaking to; and Tío Tíve, keeper of the family's history.

In the absorbing, realist tradition of Elizabeth Strout and Jonathan Franzen, Kirstin Valdez Quade brings to life the struggles of her characters to parent children they may not be equipped to save.