About the Author

Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of Night at the Fiestas, winner of the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. The recipient of a “5 Under 35” award from the National Book Foundation, she teaches at Princeton University and lives in New Jersey.

Reviews

"Masterly... Quade has created a world bristling with compassion and humanity. The characters and the challenges they face are wholly realized and moving; their journeys span a wide spectrum of emotion and it is impossible not to root for [them]."
*Alexandra Chang - New York Times Book Review*

"[A] fine-grained domestic saga... Quade is masterful with [her characters'] fragility... [A] big-hearted novel."
*Mark Athitakis - USA Today*

"Gorgeously textured... [Quade's] sinewy sentences and emotional daring astound... Quade glides elegantly across a silken tightrope between comedy and tragedy, twists of fate that buoy her narrative to its resonant conclusion. The Five Wounds is destined to be one of this year's most celebrated works of fiction."
*Hamilton Cain - Minneapolis Star Tribune*

"Kirstin Valdez Quade's debut novel hooked me on page one... It's a wholehearted, radiant, and darkly funny exploration of family, faith, and forgiveness."
*Arianna Rebolini - Buzzfeed*

"A gorgeously written, epic tale of one Latinx family's via dolorosa."
*O Magazine*

"With beautifully layered relationships and an honest yet profoundly empathetic picture of a rural community—where the families proudly trace their roots back to the Spanish conquistadors while struggling with poverty and a deadly drug epidemic—this novel is a brilliant meditation on love and redemption. Perfectly rendered characters anchor a novel built around a fierce, flawed, and loving family."
*Kirkus Reviews (starred review)*

"Penetrating... The well-developed characters convey palpable emotion as Amadeo's failures as a father, partner, entrepreneur, and even as Jesus translate into fits of rage and frustration. Quade's rendering of a singular community is pitch perfect."
*Publishers Weekly (starred review)*

"Profoundly affecting... Expertly crafted, this story of family and community introduces us to often needy characters for whom readers come to care deeply. Highly recommended."
*Library Journal (starred review)*

"Quade ably delivers a story that is nuanced and authentic without a whiff of melodrama... [A] generous tale of characters who understand the inevitability of fate but try to forge ahead anyway in the hope of breaking free."
*Booklist (starred review)*

"A masterful novel of family, faith, doubt. Quade's storytelling gift is her ability to capture the mysterious pulse of belief and ground them in visceral ritual on the page."
*Millions*

"In this cruel and divisive era, Kirstin Valdez Quade has brought healing and regeneration with The Five Wounds. It is bracing and wise, and it breaks us in the best ways. Then builds us back up again. It should find many grateful readers."
*Luis Alberto Urrea, author of House of Broken Angels*

"Kirstin Valdez Quade writes with exquisite precision about the fragility and resilience of the Padilla family…I loved The Five Wounds, which reminded me that growing pains are not confined to adolescence and that people can be newborn at any age. Even its most excruciating moments are charged with a luminous compassion."
*Karen Russell, author of Orange World and Other Stories*

"The characters in this engrossing novel are created in luminous and memorable detail. Just as the pacing is perfect, so too are the tact and care with which each scene is made. Kirstin Valdez Quade, by concentrating on the truth of small moments, has brought a whole world into focus."
*Colm Tóibín, author of House of Names*

"With deep empathy, fierce intelligence, and subtle wit, Kirstin Valdez Quade has crafted an indelible portrait of a family living in precarity. The characters in The Five Wounds are so vivid, their grasping efforts toward love and redemption so finely wrought, and each page full of such immaculate prose, that I read this novel with ever-increasing breathless urgency."
*Phil Klay, author of Missionaries*

"You hold in your hands a small, complete universe vibrating with joy and grief, humor and absurdity and delight. All the fabulous mess of humanity is, somehow, in these pages. The Five Wounds is bighearted, tender, wise, and shot through with moments of pure grace."
*C Pam Zhang, author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold*