{"id":142448,"date":"2025-09-17T01:57:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/142448\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T01:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:57:11","slug":"guatemalan-rhapsody-a-qa-with-writer-jared-lemus-ahead-of-six-bridges-book-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/142448\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Guatemalan Rhapsody\u2019: A Q&A with writer Jared Lemus ahead of Six Bridges Book Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether you\u2019re eager to find a surprise bestseller with an underwater creature as its protagonist (\u201cRemarkably Bright Creatures\u201d by Shelby Van Pelt<\/a>), cynical about the integrity of musicmaking in the era of mass streaming (\u201cMood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist\u201d by Liz Pelly<\/a>), curious about the history of racial inequality in American education (\u201cThe Battle for the Black Mind\u201d by Karida Brown<\/a>), or looking for a crime thriller that, according to The Washington Post, \u201cblurs any imaginary line between genre and great literature\u201d (\u201cSaint of the Narrows Street\u201d by William Boyle<\/a>), the Central Arkansas Library System\u2019s Six Bridges Book Festival has a book for you. With nearly 50 visiting writers in tow, it\u2019s likely that any other stray fascination you can imagine will also be represented at the festival, which runs the gamut from fiction to nonfiction to poetry. <\/p>\n

Arkansas writers appearing at Six Bridges include Regina Black, Kevin Brockmeier, Viktoria Capek, Eli Cranor, Susie Dumond, Buckley T. Foster, Carolyn Guinzio, Maria Hoskins, Jared Lemus, Linsey Miller, Adolph L. Reed Jr., Kat Robinson, Ginny Myers Sain, Vaughn Scribner, Alex Vernon, Neena Viel and Rhona Weaver.<\/p>\n

Getting fully prepared for Six Bridges, which runs from Sept. 28-Oct. 5, might be the world\u2019s longest homework assignment, so we\u2019ve collected a handful of email and phone interviews with Arkansas-connected authors to whet your palate. For a full schedule, head to cals.org\/six-bridges-book-festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

A Kenan Visiting Writer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Jared Lemus<\/a> is a Guatemalan-American fiction writer who grew up in Little Rock, where he attended Parkview High School and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. His debut book, \u201cGuatemalan Rhapsody<\/a>,\u201d came out in March. Author Jess Walter referred to it as a \u201cdazzling collection of stories about dreamers, outlaws, holy men, and at least one waterfall tender.\u201d<\/p>\n

Immigrant narratives are always vital, but there\u2019s an unfortunate urgency to the current moment. How do the stories in \u201cGuatemalan Rhapsody\u201d speak to the political reality for immigrants under the Trump Administration?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most of my stories don\u2019t deal with immigration or immigrants directly. The reason I did this is because there seems to be an expectation of the immigrant narrative, where the \u201csuccessful\u201d or \u201cvictorious\u201d migrant finally makes it to U.S. soil and they live happily ever after. This, however, is not the reality for most immigrants, and I wanted my stories to reflect that. The ones that take place in Guatemala are slice-of-life stories; these characters are living their lives and dealing with their day-to-day issues; none of them are imagining a \u201cbetter\u201d life in the U.S. Why? Because most people wouldn\u2019t leave their homeland unless they had to. The stories set in the U.S. deal with characters who are trying to better their circumstances and lives now that they\u2019re here, born to parents who emigrated. They\u2019re not suddenly well-off because their parents moved to the U.S. They still have to deal with poverty, homelessness, substance abuse, racism, xenophobia, language barriers, etc. I wanted to show that immigrating isn\u2019t in itself a success, but rather something that is forced upon people who have no other option in their home country.<\/p>\n

And, under the current presidency, there is suddenly even more added pressure. Just because of skin tone, people have to weigh whether or not they should go to work that day, to risk being picked up by ICE agents or ICE impersonators, to risk being shackled and thrown out of a plane into the ocean, to risk going to a concentration camp because they need to make money to feed their family. Being here isn\u2019t the success story people want you to think it is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\""Guatemalan\u201cGuatemalan Rhapsody\u201d by Jared Lemus<\/p>\n

I read that your family moved to Little Rock when you were about 5 years old and that most of your childhood was spent here. What kind of impact did living in Arkansas have on your writing? And does The Natural State show up \u2014 either explicitly or otherwise \u2014 in \u201cGuatemalan Rhapsody\u201d?<\/p>\n

I always say that I could have grown up in Japan, India or Australia, but at home, it would have always been Guatemala \u2014 the customs, the food, the dialect, the upbringing, that would have been the same regardless of where we lived. With that being said, as I got older, I spent many of my teen years and early 20s in the underbelly\/drug scene of the capital. I think those experiences are definitely in the collection. Out of the 12 stories, four are set in the U.S., and three of those resemble Little Rock, though it\u2019s never directly stated. \u201cWhistle While You Work\u201d takes place in a fictional version of the UA Little Rock campus, \u201cBus Stop Baby\u201d takes place, partly, in a dilapidated house off Cantrell Road, and \u201cHeart Sleeves\u201d includes my first apartment off Markham and shouts out a few of the places (though not specifically) where I got tattooed in my youth. So, yes, Little Rock is there if you look for it, but it can also be any other city in the U.S.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In reading reviews of \u201cGuatemalan Rhapsody,\u201d I came across words like \u201cmelancholy,\u201d \u201cbleak\u201d and \u201cunvarnished.\u201d What was it like to take on such weighty subject material?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ha! Yeah, I always wonder about those descriptions. To me, this is the reality of my characters. They aren\u2019t thinking of their lives in these terms. I\u2019ve been through some hard times in my life, but while unhoused, I never thought, \u201cWhat a bleak story.\u201d I thought, \u201cDamn, this sucks.\u201d My characters are more concerned with looking out and pushing forward. It\u2019s only in retrospect that we\u2019re able to say, \u201cThat was a dark time,\u201d because, in the present, it\u2019s the only thing that exists. With that being said, I think that many of my stories have a hopeful ending. And I think that\u2019s because I\u2019m always wishing the best for these characters, for these past versions of myself, for these versions of people I\u2019ve met or know. \u201cBus Stop Baby\u201d even gives readers a chance to choose their own adventure with the ending: one way more hopeful than the other. But, even when I don\u2019t take that story into account, most of these stories end with a glimmer of hope, a chance for a better future. Along with this, I\u2019ve been told that I am a fairly funny individual. I think this stems from past traumas, heartbreaks and other painful experiences. Because of this, I think every one of my stories, regardless of how \u201cbleak\u201d or \u201cdark\u201d or \u201cdepressing,\u201d has moments of humor and levity. These characters are in some dark places and sometimes the only light is a moment of joy or ironic humor or simply a joke. That comedic relief \u2014 even if it stems from a place of sadness \u2014 that\u2019s how you know their spirit isn\u2019t broken.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s the writer you\u2019re most excited to encounter at Six Bridges and why?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m very excited to meet and commune with everyone, but I have a special interest in encountering Shelby Van Pelt<\/a>, author of \u201cRemarkably Bright Creatures,\u201d because she is a fellow Ecco-HarperCollins author. Seeing her novel skyrocket the way it has, let\u2019s just say that I am hoping for the best when my novel is released. I would love to pick her brain.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether you\u2019re eager to find a surprise bestseller with an underwater creature as its protagonist (\u201cRemarkably Bright Creatures\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[457,65969,96,65970,65971,65972,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-142448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-central-arkansas-library-system","tag-entertainment","tag-jared-lemus","tag-september-2025-magazine","tag-six-bridges-book-festival","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}