Eating Ashes A Novel

Brenda Navarro, Megan McDowell

eBook - 2026

An arrestingly beautiful, award-winning novel about separation, migration, and love left behind. Alone and adrift in Barcelona, an unnamed narrator is haunted by the death of her teenage brother, Diego. Diego, the little boy she helped raise in Mexico while their mother struggled to make a living in Spain. Diego, who loved Vampire Weekend and dreamed of becoming a pilot. Diego, who hated Madrid as much as she did. Now, his ashes in hand, she must return to Mexico. Plagued by memories, she recounts their young lives leading up to tragedy in blistering detail: the acute loneliness that accompanied their emigration; the siblings' first separation, when she left for Barcelona to make her own way in the world; her activism against labor ab...uses, which is threatened by her tumultuous relationship with an entitled lover; and the final, heavyhearted confrontation with her brother. Caught between rage and heartbreak over the loss of Diego, she pieces... more