“Bridging tenderness and violence, and brimming with danger and magic, The Girl Who Cried Diamonds will leave you breathless.” — Anuja Varghese, author of Chrysalis
“In these 14 hard-edged and unapologetic stories, debut author Garcia tackles topics ranging from human trafficking and drug abuse to eating disorders and middle-age angst, and in no-frills prose, carves out bizarre and palpable realities, breathing strange life into a horde of depressed, deprived, and abused characters.” — Publishers Weekly
The boundaries between realist and fabulist, literary and speculative, are shattered in this remarkable debut collection for readers of Carmen Maria Machado, André Alexis, and Angélique Lalonde
A girl born in a small, unnamed pueblo is blessed—or cursed—with the ability to produce valuable gems from her bodily fluids. A tired wife and mother escapes the confines of her oppressive life and body by shapeshifting into a cloud. A girl reckons with the death of her father and her changing familial dynamics while slowly, mysteriously losing her physical senses.
Infused with keen insight and presented in startling prose, the stories in this dark, magnetic collection by newcomer Rebecca Hirsch Garcia invite the reader into an uncanny world out of step with reality while exploring the personal and interpersonal in a way that is undeniably, distinctly human.
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Rebecca Hirsch Garcia lives in Ottawa, Ontario. She is an O. Henry Prize–winning author whose work has been published in the Threepenny Review, PRISM international, The Dark, and elsewhere. The Girl Who Cried Diamonds & Other Stories is her debut collection.
Published: October 2023
ISBN: 9781770417274
Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 in.
Pages: 208
“In these 14 hard-edged and unapologetic stories, debut author Garcia tackles topics ranging from human trafficking and drug abuse to eating disorders and middle-age angst, and in no-frills prose, carves out bizarre and palpable realities, breathing strange life into a horde of depressed, deprived, and abused characters.” — Publishers Weekly
“The stories in Rebecca Hirsch Garcia’s debut collection glimmer and cut sharply, exploring fractured families, unexpected encounters with strangers, and the fantastical hidden in plain sight. Bridging tenderness and violence, and brimming with danger and magic, The Girl Who Cried Diamonds will leave you breathless.” — Anuja Varghese, author of Chrysalis
“Ottawa’s Rebecca Hirsch Garcia shows us parts of humanity we don’t want to acknowledge: the visceral parts, the complicated parts. Hers is a book for lovers of dark fiction and harsher truths.” — Apt613 blog
“You won’t always get neatly tied up narratives in The Girl Who Cried Diamonds and Other Stories, but that makes the stories feel all the more real and urgent. Garcia has written some fine realist pieces in the collection, but she seems most vibrant with thrillers and speculative stories...I’m particularly grateful to Garcia’s book. It didn’t make me see a different world. It made me see the world differently.” — The Masters Review
“Hirsch Garcia bends reality, turning women into clouds and telling the stories in such a manner that the reader doesn’t dare to look away.” — The Ampersand Review