Olga Dies Dreaming: A Novel

by Xochitl Gonzalez

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Pulling from her own personal experience in the high-pressure venues of New York City, author Xochitl Gonzalez tackles elitism, racism, and the pitfalls of ambition with a startingly personal brushstroke. Family drama, politics, long-buried secrets, and romance are all present and accounted for in this must-read debut that follows wedding planner Olga and her search for her own fairytale ending. Set in the months surrounding the most destructive hurricane in Puerto Rico's history, Olga Dies Dreaming ultimately explores the reality (and the struggle) of the American dream.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK · WINNER OF THE BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY PRIZE • INTERNATIONAL LATINO BOOK AWARD FINALIST

A blazing talent debuts with the tale of a status-driven wedding planner grappling with her social ambitions, absent mother, and Puerto Rican roots—all in the wake of Hurricane Maria

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Kirkus, Washington Post, TIME, NPR, Vogue, Esquire, Book Riot, Goodreads, EW, Reader's Digest, and more!

"Don’t underestimate this new novelist. She’s jump-starting the year with a smart romantic comedy that lures us in with laughter and keeps us hooked with a fantastically engaging story." —The Washington Post

It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro “Prieto” Acevedo, are boldfaced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood in Brooklyn, while Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan’s power brokers.

Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1 percent but she can’t seem to find her own. . . until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets.

Olga and Prieto’s mother, Blanca, a Young Lord turned radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives.

Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico’s history, Xochitl Gonzalez’s Olga Dies Dreaming is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife, and the very notion of the American dream—all while asking what it really means to weather a storm.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250786180
Publisher:	Flatiron Books
Publication date:	02/07/2023
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	53,681
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Xochitl Gonzalez received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow and the recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship for Fiction. Prior to writing, Xochitl wore many hats, including entrepreneur, wedding planner, fundraiser and tarot card reader. She is a proud alumna of the New York City public school system and holds a BA in art history and visual art from Brown University. She lives in her hometown of Brooklyn with her dog, Hectah Lavoe. Olga Dies Dreaming is her debut.

Editorial Reviews

Indie Next Selection for January 2022
Book of the Month Club Selection

MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME, HipLatina, Parade, The Rumpus, Angela Lashbrook, Vogue.com, Goodreads, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Bustle, Kirkus, Book Riot, Popsugar, The Stacks, Russh, Boston Globe, and more!

"The sharpest and best written social comedy in a while." —The Los Angeles Times

"Liberation is at the heart of Olga Dies Dreaming. The story’s driving tension derives from questions of how to break free...The book’s title is an allusion to the poem “Puerto Rican Obituary,” by Pedro Pietri, which contains the lines “Olga / dies dreaming of a five dollar raise.” But Gonzalez’s Olga will not go meekly to such a fate. Sometimes we must free ourselves — even from dreams." — New York Times Book Review

"Atmospheric, intelligent, and well informed: an impressive debut." —Kirkus, starred review

"Olga Dies Dreaming is a beautiful force — completely unique in its intricacies yet universal in the characters’ desires to be loved and understood." —Associated Press

"A fantastically engaging story...Rarely does a novel, particularly a debut novel, contend so powerfully and so delightfully with such a vast web of personal, cultural, political and even international imperatives." —The Washington Post

"[An] edifying debut... Gonzalez elevates this family drama with a great deal of insight on the characters’ diaspora and politics." —Publishers Weekly

"A wonderful and thought-provoking story..." —BookRiot

"Olga Dies Dreaming intricately presents its flawed characters working through the meaning of cultural identity, family secrets, grief, and self-preservation. Their stories capture the ways in which we sometimes define ourselves by how others see us — to often painful ends." —Book of the Month

"Xochitl Gonzalez delivers a healthy dose of tough love with her buzzy debut Olga Dies Dreaming." —TIME

"In her ambitious debut novel, Gonzalez explores such weighty topics as coercion, rape, gentrification, and the colonial exploitation...Shining throughout, however, is the redeeming quality of love in all its iterations: romantic, fraternal, paternal, patriotic, and ultimately, love of self." —Booklist

“In Xochitl Gonzalez’s gripping debut, the shadow of their absent mother, a Puerto Rican independence activist, looms over the political and personal choices of two adult siblings living in Brooklyn.” –Vanity Fair

"Vibrant and raw...Olga Dies Dreaming delivers a roller coaster’s worth of beautiful highs and lows. All told, it’s an experience worth savoring." —BookPage

“Hilarious… A sprawling dramedy of love, politics, blackmail and real estate featuring a Puerto Rican family in Brooklyn." —People

“In this Technicolor novel from an astounding new voice, we meet Olga and Prieto Acevedo… Packed with richly imagined characters and vivacious prose, the novel asks how we can live meaningful lives in a world rife with inequality.” —Esquire


“For lovers of fiction, [OLGA DIES DREAMING] doesn’t simply demand your attention—it seizes your attention by the huevos and doesn’t let go until you turn the last page. For Puerto Rican and Boricua readers, Gonzalez and her characters breathe new life into the age-old adage, Pa’lante.” –Jezebel

"The extraordinary accomplishment of Olga Dies Dreaming is in how a familiar-enough tale—a woman seeking love, happiness, and fulfillment in the big city—slowly reveals itself to be something else altogether. It’s a book about a New York that isn’t always celebrated, the one that belongs to immigrant communities; about money, class, and political power; about one vividly-imagined family and the very idea of the American Dream." —Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind

"In this sparkling debut, Gonzalez digs deep into the damaged heart of a family, ably dissecting the knottiness of conditional love, identity, loyalty, secrets and the very definition of home. That she manages to cover so much ground with wisdom, tenderness and abundant humor makes this book a complete joy, and I will think about its richly drawn, deeply human characters for a very long time." —Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest and Good Company

“Olga Dies Dreaming is the story of an imperfect family shattered by secrets, grief, and abandonment, and of people who rise up, refusing to be broken. Smart, witty, and driven, Gonzalez’s Olga hustles, stumbles, falls, and eventually finds her way. An unflinching examination of capitalism, corruption, gentrification, colonialism, and their effects on marginalized people, Olga Dies Dreaming is a poignant, scalding debut.” —Jaquira Díaz, author of Ordinary Girls

“Olga Dies Dreaming is as funny as it is insightful, as deft as it is original. In this impressive debut, Xochitl Gonzalez displays a gift for capturing the absurdity in the fabric of life. Wit and wisdom rarely combine in such a powerful one-two punch.” —Mat Johnson, author of Pym and Loving Day

“Olga Dies Dreaming is a love letter to Brooklyn brimming with the best music, with dreams and sorrows—the stuff of real life. At turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Gonzalez gives us a gripping novel about community, family, betrayal, and the complicated inheritance of diaspora—a wild and ambitious saga that shows once again how the personal is always deeply political. An unforgettable story about finding and defending home." —Jennine Capó Crucet, author of My Time Among The Whites

From the Publisher

10/25/2021

Gonzalez’s edifying debut follows a successful Puerto Rican Brooklynite with family baggage that increasingly disrupts her life. Olga, 40, a wedding planner and frequent guest on morning TV shows, rubs shoulders—and sometimes more—with her wealthy, powerful clients. Her older brother, Prieto, who is secretly gay, has risen through the local political ranks to become a U.S. congressman who represents their Sunset Park neighborhood. The siblings’ beloved papí, once a charismatic activist for Puerto Rican independence, fell into heroin addiction and died when Olga was still a teen, and their mamí remained true to the cause, leaving her children to work with a covert paramilitary group. Olga does not know, but Prieto has been the victim of blackmail for years by a couple of real estate moguls with whom she is acquainted, who’ve made a killing off their Puerto Rican community in Brooklyn. Details about their papí’s life and tragic death, as well as his blackmailers’ sinister intentions in Puerto Rico, add poignancy to Prieto’s troubles, and each sibling faces a crisis of conscience when Hurricane Maria hits and their mamí issues a dubious ultimatum. The expository dialogue often feels stilted, but the characters’ yearning to see the island thrive adds passion and complexity. Gonzalez elevates this family drama with a great deal of insight on the characters’ diaspora and politics. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

08/01/2021

Of Puerto Rican heritage, Olga Acevedo is a wedding planner to the rich and powerful while brother Pedro ("Prieto") serves their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood as congressman in their hometown, New York. Maybe, just maybe, Olga has finally found a love of her own, but then the mother who deserted the siblings years ago to pursue her increasingly radical beliefs crashes back into their lives. With a 300,000-copy first printing; Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate Gonzalez won the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship.

Library Journal

A trio of narrators performs this debut audiobook featuring siblings Olga and Prieto. The story is set in New York City in 2017, with flashbacks to their childhood. Blanca, the siblings’ mother, a militant radical, abandoned them as children to fight for Puerto Rico’s independence from the U.S. As the story is told primarily from Olga’s point of view, the additional viewpoints of her brother, their mother, and two of Olga’s lovers give the story additional depth. Multiple performers, all skilled at their craft, draw listeners further into the narrative. Inés del Castillo, Almarie Guerra, and Armando Riesco capture each of the characters’ personalities, expertly showcasing their talent for fluid transitions between emotions, accents, and dialects. An exquisite production. A.L.S.M. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2021 - AudioFile

A trio of narrators performs this debut audiobook featuring siblings Olga and Prieto. The story is set in New York City in 2017, with flashbacks to their childhood. Blanca, the siblings’ mother, a militant radical, abandoned them as children to fight for Puerto Rico’s independence from the U.S. As the story is told primarily from Olga’s point of view, the additional viewpoints of her brother, their mother, and two of Olga’s lovers give the story additional depth. Multiple performers, all skilled at their craft, draw listeners further into the narrative. Inés del Castillo, Almarie Guerra, and Armando Riesco capture each of the characters’ personalities, expertly showcasing their talent for fluid transitions between emotions, accents, and dialects. An exquisite production. A.L.S.M. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2021 - AudioFile

★ 2021-09-29
Warmhearted but tough-minded story of a sister and brother grappling with identity, family, and life goals in gentrifying Brooklyn.

Olga and Prieto Acevedo grew up in Sunset Park, in one of the first Puerto Rican families to move into a then-White working-class neighborhood. Now Olga lives in a Fort Greene high-rise and is a very high-end wedding planner. Prieto is back in the family house with his grandmother after a divorce; he’s a congressman fighting for his district—except when he’s shifting his vote at the behest of the Selby brothers, sinister real estate developers who have compromising photos of very closeted Prieto having sex with a man. The siblings both have bad consciences about having compromised the ideals of their mother, a radical activist for Puerto Rican independence who abandoned the family when Olga was 12 and is now a fugitive. Vivid portraits of various friends and relatives capture the richness of Nuyorican culture, and sharp-eyed observations of the Brooklyn social and political landscape underpin a busy plot. It climaxes with the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico, where their mother has become the leader of a revolutionary group called the Pañuelos Negros. An actual boyfriend for the previously commitment-phobic Olga prompts her to reassess a career focused on making lots of money, while an HIV scare goads Prieto to question the need to hide his true self. Supported by Tía Lola and their cousin Mabel, sister and brother also begin to realize how their mother has manipulated them for years with her chastising letters, which are scattered throughout to offer grim examples of fanatical political commitment. Nonetheless, debut novelist Gonzalez’s stinging and knowledgeable commentary about the American sociopolitical order that keeps Black and brown people poor and powerless suggests that radical remedies are called for, even if she gives the personal dramas of her appealing main characters pleasingly hopeful final acts.

Atmospheric, intelligent, and well informed: an impressive debut.

Kirkus Reviews