An award-winning April book
I'LL GIVE YOU A REASON by Annell López
About the book:
A shimmering debut story collection intimately exploring race, identity, and the pursuit of the American Dream.
The vibrant stories in I’ll Give You a Reason explore race, identity, connection, and belonging in the Ironbound, an immigrant neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. A young widow goes on her first date since her husband’s death and finds herself hunting a bear in the woods with a near stranger. An unhappy wife compares her mother’s love spells and rituals to her own efforts to repair her strained marriage. A self-conscious college student discovers a porn star who shares her name and becomes obsessed with her doppelgänger’s freedom and comfort with her own body.
Annell López’s indelible characters tread the waters of political unrest, sexuality, religion, body image, Blackness, colorism, and gentrification—searching for their identities and a sliver of joy and intimacy. Through each story, a nuanced portrait of the “American Dream” emerges, uplifting the voices of those on its margins.
Praise for I’LL GIVE YOU A REASON:
“Heartfelt stories of a city and the people within it, lovingly pieced together.” —Kirkus Reviews
“This Newark, New Jersey-set collection centers themes of race, identity, connection, and belonging through powerful characters, whose vibrancy pop from the page.” —TODAY
“A fascinating cast of characters.” —HipLatina
“I’ll Give You a Reason thrums with richly drawn portrayals of Dominican immigrants rarely visible in our society. Annell López makes us see these complex, tough women and girls in their full humanity. Even as they chase an elusive American dream, these characters fight back in the ways they know how. And we can’t help but love them for it. An arresting, vital debut.” —Bridgett M. Davis, author of The World According to Fannie Davis
“Through these elegant, poetic, and often devastating short stories, López explores both the profoundly familiar and the strange in everyday immigrant and working-class American life. I’ll Give You a Reason is a rare page-turner of a collection: startlingly sensitive, oozing with compassion, and full of both gentle and explosive revelations about human nature, forgiveness, and the grace we sometimes fail to offer ourselves. I couldn't put this extraordinary book down.” —Nancy Jooyoun Kim, author of The Last Story of Mina Lee
“‘Girls like me don’t build castles out of sand,’ one of Annell López's characters in I’ll Give You a Reason tells us. This strong and assured sense of voice dominates throughout this simmering short story collection—in characters that are as different as night and day. Full of spunk and insights that sneak up on you, and with prose as clear and sharp as laser surgery, López possesses an uncanny ability to get inside the heads and hearts of all the players—opponents and allies alike—in stories about immigration, sexuality, gentrification, and that ever-elusive American dream.” —Cassandra Lane, author of We Are Bridges
“There’s a sharp and captivating voice throughout each story and character navigating identity, gentrification, colorism, and much more through the immigrant lens. This unique voice echoes the type of storytelling that captivated me in my youth and which made me long for more of its kind.” —Lupita Aquino, book influencer
“The stories that comprise I'll Give You a Reason by Annell López are some of the finest I've read: they are humorous, sad, joyful, and, most importantly, filled with humanity... For fans of Carmen Maria Machado, Jamel Brinkley, and Mariana Enriquez, this is a book for you. I'll Give You a Reason solidifies López as not a writer to watch, but a writer for whom you will be waiting anxiously for her next master work.” —Morgan Talty, author of Night of the Living Rez
“Through this prismatic and powerful collection, López invites us into a Newark of the mind, where, with her characters, we can drink beside the Passaic, throw bottles at abandoned warehouses, kiss our neighbors, shovel snow. Writing with burning intensity and a command of the form, López proves herself to be a major new talent.” —Morgan Babst, author of The Floating World
“In I'll Give You a Reason, you'll find the ways that women skirt around or immerse themselves in grief. The collection captures the malaise of life when you can no longer predict what's ahead of you. But the stories in Lopez's debut hum with something that might just be akin to hope. ” —Ivelisse Rodriguez, author of Love War Stories
“Heartbreaking and heartwarming, López brilliantly mines the junction where the immigrant and universal experiences meet. We have long needed this distinct perspective and voice. ” —Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of A Kind of Freedom
“This collection is an instant classic. In stories both intimate and expansive, López dazzles with striking tales of desire thwarted or fulfilled. I'll Give You a Reason is written with a keen insight for the mental processes of love and longing. I found myself hurrying through the pages to find out what would happen, but also slowing down so that I could return to these characters day after day...By turns darkly comic and achingly poetic, this is one of the finest collections of stories ever written.” —Maurice Carlos Ruffin, author of The Ones Who Don't Say They Love You
“Annell López's daring, intimate, and intricate prose traverses Blackness, sex, religion, and so much more. These narratives exceed our understanding of what a short story can do. I’ll Give You a Reason is a stunner of a collection. A superb, unforgettable debut.” —Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
“The vividly drawn characters in Annell López's I'll GIve You A Reason never back down. They run toward heartache and disappointment, wielding their vulnerability like a fist in a bare-knuckle fight. Likewise, the stories never run from the beautiful complexity of identity, who we are to our parents, our communities, our country, and most importantly, ourselves.” —Camille Acker, author of Training School for Negro Girls
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Annell López is a Dominican immigrant. She is the author of the short story collection I’ll Give You a Reason, winner of the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize, forthcoming in 2024 from the Feminist Press. A 2022 Peter Taylor fellow, her work has received support from Tin House and the Kenyon Review Workshops and has appeared in American Short Fiction, Michigan Quarterly Review, Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere. López is an Assistant Fiction Editor for New Orleans Review and just finished her MFA at the University of New Orleans. She is working on a novel.
Photo: Greg Waltenberg