The University of Arizona Press
November 29, 2023
Alma García was featured on the Texas Standard News Show and spoke about her debut novel, All That Rises. In the interview, she spoke about her inspiration for the book, her personal ties to El Paso and Albuquerque, key themes in her book, and how she makes the story come alive.
The inspiration from the story came from a character that she wrote about in short story 20 years ago, a Mexican-American working class gardener.
“And once I wrote the story and it was published and it had received some attention, I felt like ‘oh, I can’t quite let go of this character. I am interested in spinning a world around him.’ And I already understood that El Paso was sort of the background of where he was in his world. But as I began to spin a world around him, I began to understand that there was something bigger happening here,” she said.
One of the key themes in her book is “that history repeats itself no matter how many times we think humanity has surely learned its lesson,” said García.
Another key theme she would like readers to take away is “the idea of what borders mean in a larger sense. I mean, a border is a place that both divides and joins in. It’s a geopolitical gesture.”
If you would like to listen or read the full interview click here.
About the book:
In the border city of El Paso, Texas, two guardedly neighboring families have plunged headlong into a harrowing week. Rose Marie DuPre, wife and mother, has abandoned her family. On the doorstep of the Gonzales home, long-lost rebel Inez appears. As Rose Marie’s husband, Huck (manager of a maquiladora), and Inez’s brother, Jerry (a college professor), struggle separately with the new shape of their worlds, Lourdes, the Mexican maid who works in both homes, finds herself entangled in the lives of her employers, even as she grapples with a teenage daughter who only has eyes for el otro lado—life, American style.
