Nicky Gonzalez, author of Mayra, in conversation with Claire Luchette
When:
Tuesday, Jul 22, 2025 7:00p -
8:00p
Tuesday, Jul 22, 2025 7:00p -
8:00p
Where:
Porter Square Books
1815 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02140
Admission:
FREE
Hosted by:
Categories:
Lectures & Conferences
Event website:
https://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/2025-07-22/nicky-gonzalez-author-mayra-conversation-claire-luchette
Porter Square Books is thrilled to welcome Nicky Gonzalez to celebrate the release of her debut novel Mayra! Writer Claire Luchette will join Gonzalez in conversation.
This event will take place at our CAMBRIDGE store. We offer validated parking in the lot on Roseland St. behind Lesley's University Hall. See parking details below.
RSVP to let us know you're coming and to receive event updates!*
*Please note that you will not receive a confirmation email. However, we will send a reminder email one day before the event. Please check your spam folder if you do not see the pre-event email reminder. Better yet, add [email protected] to your safe sender list to avoid PSB event emails going to spam!
ABOUT MAYRA
An eerie, hypnotic debut about friendship, desire, and memory set against the sultry backdrop of Florida’s swamplands.
“A mesmerizing, hallucinatory adrenaline rush of a novel.”—Claire Luchette, author of Agatha of Little Neon
It’s been years since Ingrid has heard from her childhood best friend, Mayra, a fearless rebel who fled their hometown of Hialeah, a Cuban neighborhood just west of Miami, for college in the Northeast. But when Mayra calls out of the blue to invite Ingrid to a weekend getaway at a house in the Everglades, she impulsively accepts.
From the moment Ingrid sets out, danger looms: The directions are difficult, she’s out of reach of cell service, and as she drives deeper into the Everglades, the wet maw of the swamp threatens to swallow her whole. But once Ingrid arrives, Mayra is, in many ways, just as she remembers—with her sharp tongue and effortless, seductive beauty, still thumbing her nose at the world.
Before they can fully settle into the familiar intimacy of each other’s company, their reunion is spoiled by the reemergence of past disagreements and the unexpected presence of Mayra’s new boyfriend, Benji. The trio spend their hours eating lavish meals and exploring the labyrinthine house, which holds as much mystery as the swamp itself. Indoors and on the grounds, time itself seems to expand, and Ingrid begins to lose a sense of the outside world, and herself.
Against this disquieting setting, where lizards dart in and out of porches and alligators peek from dark waters, Gonzalez weaves a surreal, unforgettable story about the dizzying power of early friendship and the lengths we’ll go to earn love and acceptance—even at the risk of losing ourselves entirely.
PRAISE FOR MAYRA
“Nicky Gonzalez channels Shirley Jackson (something I do not say lightly) in this disquieting, mesmerizing twenty-first-century Southern Gothic. In Mayra, the hazy borders of friendship and identity are blurred, made uncanny and dangerous, and I was hooked from paragraph one.”—Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie and A Head Full of Ghosts
“In prose as luscious as the ribs at our beloved Flanigan’s, the story that unfolds between Mayra and Ingrid lovingly embodies the vibrant beauty of Hialeah and the Florida Everglades. Mayra is a haunting testament to the literal terror of being consumed by the very thing you’re trying to escape.”—Jennine Capó Crucet, author of Say Hello to My Little Friend
“Eerie, haunting, and gorgeously written, Mayra is a powerful story of memory, home, and the friendships that make us. I was entranced by its luscious dreamworld of secret doors, traps, wonders, and the uncanny. Gonzalez is a master of tension, tenuous lines, and complicated love.”—Ananda Lima, author of Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil
“Gorgeous and hypnotic, surreal and unsettling, Mayra is part coming-of-age story, part Twilight Zone episode, part thoughtful meditation on all of the ways that memory is itself a haunted house. I loved this book.”—Karen Thompson Walker, New York Times bestselling author of The Strange Case of Jane O.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Nicky Gonzalez is a writer from Hialeah, Florida. Her fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, BOMB Magazine, Kenyon Review Online, Taco Bell Quarterly, and other publications. She has received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Granum Foundation, Millay Arts, Lighthouse Works, and the Hambidge Center. She lives in Massachusetts.
Claire Luchette is the author of the novel Agatha of Little Neon (FSG, 2021) and the recipient of a Whiting Award. Their second novel, Swans, and a story collection, Big Whoop, are forthcoming from FSG.
Claire was a 2024-25 Radcliffe Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. They've also received grants and support from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, Yaddo, the James Merrill House, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Millay Colony, and Lighthouse Works, among others. A National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree, Claire's fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, VQR, Ploughshares, The New York Times, Granta, Kenyon Review, Glimmer Train, and other publications. They teach in the creative writing program at Binghamton University.
PARKING
Porter Square Books: Cambridge Edition offers validated parking in the lot on Roseland St. behind Lesley's University Hall. Roseland Street is accessible by Beacon Street and Mass Ave. When you arrive at the lot, use the screen on the kiosk to get a ticket.
When you're ready to leave, ask for a validation barcode at the cash register. (No purchase necessary.) Parking is free on weekends and weekday evenings from 6PM-7AM. From 7AM-6PM on weekdays the first 45 minutes are free.
Upon exiting the lot, scan your ticket and choose "validation." Then scan the barcode your received from us. If you have an additional charge, you will be prompted to pay after scanning your barcode.
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