do not weep

What’s it about?

My novel Do Not Weep explores how we make sense of our lives even in the face of loss and failure.

Set in a Pennsylvania college town and the highlands of Guatemala, Do Not Weep tells the story of Sydney, a North American who falls in love with a Guatemalan activist named Gabriel. Sydney meets Gabriel at a benefit concert in 1979 when he rescues her from a well-intentioned health food cookie, offering her a slice of creamy flan instead. She loves him for that, even if he is a communist.

And she loves him for his heart, the same heart that won’t let him sit back and watch what’s happening in his homeland from a distance. When the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City goes up in flames with a group of campesino activists trapped inside in 1980, Gabriel leaves the States and heads for the highlands to fight.

Seen through the eyes of Sydney and her niece Julie, Do Not Weep opens in 2010, but moves back and forth in time, weaving together stories told by multiple voices, Guatemalan and North American, unraveling a story of real people who make serious mistakes and somehow find ways to live with that. Some even manage to do so with a measure of grace.