NEED TO KNOW<\/p>\n
Whiting Award winner Jaquira D\u00edaz has a debut novel on the way, This Is the Only Kingdom<\/a> After a few weeks, the cops stopped looking for Rey. They forgot about him or moved on to other guys, other cases. He started coming around again, joining Ismael and Cano on the basketball courts, then they\u2019d walk over to Cano\u2019s apartment for drinks. During those afternoons, they\u2019d sit around Do\u00f1a Matos\u2019s kitchen table, shooting the shit, sometimes play cards.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n One afternoon, Rey brought out the deck, but Cano wasn\u2019t interested. He didn\u2019t have the money. He told Rey and Ismael how he was supposed to finish his degree, but things had gotten hard. He had his part-time job at the library, but that wasn\u2019t enough for tuition, for books. It would take him an extra year to finish. He didn\u2019t feel like playing.\n<\/p>\n \u201cBesides,\u201d Cano said, \u201cI don\u2019t feel like losing my last two quarters to a kid.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Rey laughed and left the deck on the table, sipping on his Kola Champagne.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been writing songs,\u201d Ismael said. He was trying to get his band together. Ismael was always trying to start a band, but nobody ever took him seriously.\n<\/p>\n \u201cSo you\u2019re really doing it,\u201d Cano said, just being nice. He knew that Ismael could play, but the band thing would never happen.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m doing it,\u201d Ismael said. \u201cWatch. When I get famous, all you sorry fools will come running.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cI could play with you, you know,\u201d Rey said.\n<\/p>\n Ismael smiled, slapped him on the shoulder. \u201cYou can sing too.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Nowadays, Rey wrote these ballads that he sang all over el Caser\u00edo, busting out in a falsetto whenever he saw a group of girls walking home from school, serenading the abuelas whenever he worked the register at Don Ojeda\u2019s store, making the schoolgirls blush or giggle, the older women saying things like If only I was 30 years younger. Everybody called him Rey el Cantante.\n<\/p>\n \u201cBut you gotta stay out of trouble if we\u2019re gonna make this happen.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cListen,\u201d Cano said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if you two will get famous, but if you get some gigs, I have my van. It\u2019s old, has no seats in the back, but it works. I can drive you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Ismael raised his glass. \u201cIt\u2019s a deal, then. When we make it big, I\u2019ll get some fucking custom congas and I\u2019ll buy you whatever you want. Hell, I\u2019ll pay your f—ing tuition.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Jaquira D\u00edaz.<\/p>\n Sylvie Rosokoff<\/p>\n Rey and Ismael practiced for months while they found other musicians for their band. Eventually, they had a guy on trumpet, a trombonist, a bassist, a guy on keyboards and Ismael\u2019s cousin Edgar as the temporary lead singer until they found someone better. Rey and Ismael were always at practice, but some guys came and went with the hurricane season. They couldn\u2019t find a good lead singer, and Rey didn\u2019t want to sing. He was a drummer, no matter how much Ismael insisted he should sing.\n<\/p>\n \u201cYou sing,\u201d Rey said every time Ismael brought it up. \u201cThis whole thing was your idea. It\u2019s your band.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cBut you\u2019re a singer,\u201d Ismael said.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI can sing, but I\u2019m not a singer. I freeze up, man.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cIf you can sing all over the streets, you can sing onstage,\u201d Ismael said.\n<\/p>\n Take PEOPLE with you!\u00a0Subscribe to PEOPLE magazine<\/a>\u00a0to get the latest details on celebrity news, exclusive royal updates, how-it-happened true crime stories and more \u2014 right to your mailbox.\n<\/p>\n They managed to keep Edgar on vocals, Ismael and Rey and the rest of the band practicing like every day, five days a week, for months. But they had nothing to practice for, no gigs. Until Cano\u2019s older brother, David the deacon, who\u2019d moved into the Catholic parish in el pueblo as he prepared to be ordained, came home for a visit.\n<\/p>\n Do\u00f1a Matos was so happy to have him home, so proud that her son would soon be a priest, she cooked all his favorite foods: mofongo con camarones, arroz con gandules, pernil, tembleque. It was just the three of them, but she made enough food for a party. That\u2019s how Cano got the idea, then went to find Rey and Ismael at the basketball courts.\n<\/p>\n \u201cA party for your brother?\u201d Rey asked. \u201cIs it his birthday?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cNah. He\u2019s getting ordained. He\u2019s going to be a priest.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cThey have parties for that?\u201d\n<\/p>\n Ismael clapped his hands. \u201cThis is el Caser\u00edo, my man. We have parties for everything!\u201d\n<\/p>\n Soon everybody was out in the street with whatever they could afford to bring. People called their friends down in Patagonia, who arrived ready for a party \u2014 everybody knew Do\u00f1a Matos from the neighborhood or the hospital. And everybody knew her eldest son from church. David the deacon, the good one, called by God, destined to be a priest.\n<\/p>\n So Rey and Ismael and their band played their first gig, a spontaneous Catholic block party. Rey on timbales, Ismael on congas, Edgar on vocals. Ismael and Rey played like they were stars, all eyes on them. Nobody knew that, to them, this felt exactly like living a dream. They weren\u2019t great, but they weren\u2019t embarrassing either. They were boys, 19, 22, 23, with a little talent and a lot of guts, who decided they would do something nobody in el Caser\u00edo had ever thought they could do. And that night, the neighbors, their friends, everybody danced.\n<\/p>\n As Loli started dancing with Carmelo, Maricarmen went to get a drink. That was the first time she had a real conversation with Rey, who handed her a Medalla from a cooler and asked her name. He\u2019d been watching her awhile. She\u2019d noticed him while he played, younger than all the other musicians, dark skinned and baby faced, with dark fuzz over his upper lip (that maybe could someday be a mustache), and all those curls.\n<\/p>\n The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now<\/a>!\n<\/p>\n \u201cHow long have you been playing?\u201d she asked him.\n<\/p>\n He took a moment, then shrugged. \u201cI don\u2019t know. Always.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cAlways? You mean like your whole life?\u201d Maricarmen asked.\n<\/p>\n \u201cSomething like that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cDid you take music lessons?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cYes and no,\u201d he said. \u201cI taught myself. My uncle\u2019s a musician too. You know how sometimes there are things you can just do, and nobody has to teach you?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cI guess.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cI had a music teacher, but the lessons didn\u2019t teach me anything I didn\u2019t already know.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Maricarmen studied his face. She\u2019d taken a few music classes, a handful of voice lessons with Don Ojeda that she paid for with money she made cleaning apartments. She\u2019d dreamed of being a singer once, like Lucecita Ben\u00edtez, or Blanca Rosa Gil, or like La Lupe on the Myrta Silva show, hips swaying from side to side, singing \u201cLa Tirana,\u201d beautiful and irreverent and free. But that had been a dream.\n<\/p>\n They kept talking while all their friends danced in the street. Loli and Carmelo didn\u2019t skip a single song, while Cano and Ismael danced with all the neighborhood girls. Maricarmen occasionally cut in to twirl around with Loli, turning her this way and that way, then handing her off to Carmelo when she went to the cooler for another drink \u2014 an excuse to get back to Rey. Over by the cooler, Rey and the rest of the band, all of them drunk, were gathered around the last of the beer.\n<\/p>\n ‘This Is The Only Kingdom’ by Jaquira D\u00edaz.<\/p>\n Algonquin Books<\/p>\n Carmelo headed their way and everybody turned.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWho\u2019s that? Your bodyguard?\u201d Rey asked. The guys exploded with laughter.\n<\/p>\n Carmelo didn\u2019t say anything, just lit a cigarette. He was younger than the other guys, a quiet skinny boy who had exactly two friends: Maricarmen and Loli.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s my pana, Carmelo,\u201d Maricarmen said, and quickly changed the subject. \u201cSo you guys write your own songs?\u201d\n<\/p>\n Ismael smiled, put his hand around Rey. \u201cThis guy right here. He writes most of them.\u201d He smacked his friend\u2019s chest lightly. \u201cRey el Cantante. Isn\u2019t that what all the girls call you?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cRey? That\u2019s you?\u201d Loli asked. \u201cI thought Rey el Cantante was supposed to be sexy.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Rey covered his face with one hand but couldn\u2019t stop laughing.\n<\/p>\n \u201cLoli!\u201d Maricarmen said, a little too loudly.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what all the girls around the neighborhood are saying,\u201d Loli said.\n<\/p>\n They talked and talked, late into the night. Ismael told them about Rey coming home after two years in a work camp for juveniles, how he\u2019d had a real hard life but finally got his shit together, and now there he was. There they all were. And one day, they\u2019d be able to leave this place.\n<\/p>\n Nobody wanted to go home. They had turned the music down, but it was still playing. And when a song they liked came on, they all swayed a little, everybody waiting for something \u2014 anything \u2014 to happen. And then something did.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe epic novel, which has already been longlisted for the Center For Fiction First Novel Award, follows a mother and daughter dealing with the fallout from a murder, set against the backdrop of a close-knit Puerto Rico barrio
\nRead an exclusive excerpt from the book below<\/p>\n