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“I don’t want happiness. I want meaning.”
Second edition. The American-born only child of Mexican immigrants, Vanessa Ochoa thought she knew what she wanted until she got it. But when a crisis forces her to redefine her life and start over in the place she swore she would never return to, she searches for something transcendent among the ruins of memory. The narrative weaves in and out of key moments of her youth and adult life: her decision to leave her hometown, her career ascension, and the pursuit of temporal and material desires. Exploring themes of time and fate, family and character, and perseverance against odds, Vanessa’s journey is an ode to grace and hope laid bare.
With a simultaneously urgent and unhurried voice, the novel pulses between the past and future and disappointment and possibility as Vanessa searches for a bridge between the known and the unknown while she aims for the steady surge of the Pacific. In chronicling her journey with grace and empathy, Auten also shows the American Dream, hatched in hope, can sour within a generation. A moving, heartbreaking, and thoroughly immersive story. I’ll miss Vanessa, her insistent voice and her lost chances haunting long after the last page.
—Jeff Ewing, author of The Middle Ground
In Another Sun reminds us life is experienced in fragments, shards of memories, snippets of conversations, and through what is and what could have been. Auten’s prose thoughtfully explores the powerful notion that, perhaps above all, our heart’s desire is simply to be known.
—Debbie Graber, author of Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday
220 pages
ISBN (print): 9798986092775
ISBN (ebook) 9798999476807
Purchase from publisher (preferred)
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Order the book (print and ebook).
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And now for this month’s story…
William Auten
Copyright William Auten
The register’s belt rolls ahead of Heidi and Marcus while the customer dressed in a green vest over a heavy jacket and ice-wet work boots thanks the cashier and folds his receipt. They all say something about the bouquet of flowers he leaves behind. He picks it up and, blushing, admits he could use one more weekend before Valentine’s Day.
Marcus checks a text and helps Heidi unload the box of pasta, sauce, peppers, onions, meat, and chocolates. “Change of plans.” He readies a card for the cashier. “I need you to drop me off somewhere.”
“Where?”
“All l can tell you is your Valentine’s Day gift is ready for me to pick up.”
The customer behind them empties her basket and adjusts her business jacket’s sleeves. The cashier greets her and scans the first stack of cat food cans. Thumping down a bottle of wine, the woman chats about not having any plans for the weekend.
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