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JUVENTUD

Vanessa Blakeslee

In the bristling, beautiful prose that won her an IPPY Gold Medal for her short story collection Train Shots, Vanessa Blakeslee's Juventud explores the idealism of youth, the complexities of a ravaged country, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.

Growing up as the only daughter of a wealthy landowner in Santiago de Cali, Colombia, teenaged Mercedes Martinez knows a world of maids, armed guards, and private drivers. When she falls in love with Manuel, a fiery young activist with a passion for his faith and his country, she begins to understand the suffering of the desplazados who share her land. A startling discovery about her father forces Mercedes to doubt everything she thought she knew about her life, and she and Manuel make plans to run away together. But before they can, tragedy strikes in a single violent night. Mercedes flees Colombia for the United States and a life she never could have imagined. Fifteen years later, she returns to Colombia seeking the truth, but discovers that only more questions await. In her debut novel, Vanessa Blakeslee probes the socio-political conflicts in Colombia’s drug wars by humanizing all sides of the story. As revealed in by the complex characters of JUVENTUD, no one is entirely guilty or blameless. Vanessa Blakeslee's debut short story collection, Train Shots, is the winner of the 2014 IPPY Gold Medal in Short Fiction and long-listed for the 2014 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Vanessa's writing has appeared in The Southern Review, Green Mountains Review, The Paris Review Daily,The Globe and Mail, Kenyon Review Online, and Bustle among many others. Winner of the inaugural Bosque Fiction Prize, she has also been awarded grants and residencies from Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Banff Centre, Ledig House, the Ragdale Foundation, and in 2013 received the Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. Born and raised in northeastern Pennsylvania, she is a longtime resident of Maitland, Florida.

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Book Published 2015-10-20 by Curbside Splendor Publishing

Comments

Blakeslee’s poetic language and exquisite descriptive detail give Juventud a canvas on which to portray what it is like to grow up with daily peril and family secrets. Where is trust? The book provides a realistic history of the drug wars beyond headlines as it transports the reader to Colombia’s streets, cities, and farms. The characters’ intriguing discussions about social justice, good and evil, activism, love, forgiveness, and hope serve to strengthen and enhance the story’s essence. Read more...

… a novel all about trying to find the truth underneath the story that meets the eye…. It's a deeply moving story that will leave you questioning your firmness in truth and reality. Read more...

From the opening pages, rich in detail and suspense, her novel is vivid and full of life. Diane Lefer

Juventud makes an excellent pairing with Netflix's series "Narcos," which begins a few decades earlier and traces the rise of the Medellin Cartel. While the series -- shot in Colombia -- focuses on those who drove and helped maintain the violence there, Blakeslee's novel traces its eventual effects on one young woman's life. Together (and with the caveat that both take some poetic license), they're a crash course in the history of a place I didn't know at all.

This tale of self-discovery and intense first love is spiced with bursts of action and curious twists. It will engage readers who have a soft spot for entertaining storytelling and a familiarity with Colombian social history. Read more...

Juventud listed as one of the “Books that Buzzed at BookExpo America” ... take another look at Vanessa Blakeslee’s Juventud (...) - they are among the most intriguing books at the convention to feature what might be called post-coming-of-age characters, fledgling adults stepping more or less successfully into the grand, harsh world. Given their popularity on the show floor, lots of readers are apparently stepping with them. Read more...

Vanessa Blakeslee's remarkable debut novel takes us inside Colombia through the eyes of Mercedes, a privileged half-Colombian girl who leaves the safety of Papi's hacienda to embark on a life touched by disappointment and splendid achievement. Her story echoes the conflicts of our twenty-first century's transnational, uneasy global culture.

A harrowing, international coming-of-age story, Juventud is unforgettable, erotic, and suspenseful. I was willing to follow the protagonist Mercedes anywhere; into the Cali nightclubs, to her shooting lessons, into bed with her lovers, and to the dangerous activist meetings and rallies that mark a point-of-no-return in her adolescence. This novel is part political thriller, part love story. It kept me up at night and that's the highest praise.

Because Juventud is at its best a love story between Mercedes and Manuel, Blakeslee has to navigate the language of romance and sex as well as that of history and politics. When these things work together, the writing is at its most interesting... Read more...

Blakeslee is a wonderful storyteller and a powerful new voice. Train Shots was a strong debut and has recently been optioned for film; this book should put her in the limelight again. Sarah Corbett Morgan