Exclusive Excerpt: “This Is the Only Kingdom” by Jaquira Díaz
Jaquira Díaz shares an excerpt from her debut novel, This Is the Only Kingdom, which is longlisted for the Center for Fiction 2025 First Novel Prize.
Photo by Sylvie Rosokoff
Jacuira is also the author of Ordinary Girls: A Memoir, winner of a Whiting Award, a Florida Book Awards Gold Medal, a Lambda Literary Awards finalist, an American Booksellers Association Indies Introduce Selection, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, an Indie Next Pick, a Library Reads pick, and finalist for the B&N Discover Prize. Ordinary Girls was optioned for television and is currently in development.
To learn more about Jacuira and her inspiring career, visit here.
Synopsis
When Maricarmen meets Rey el Cantante, beloved small-time Robin Hood and local musician on the rise, she begins to envision a life beyond the tight-knit community of el Caserío, Puerto Rico – beyond cleaning houses, beyond waiting tables, beyond the constant tug of war between the street hustlers and los camarones. But breaking free proves more difficult than she imagined, and she soon finds herself struggling to make a home for herself, for Rey, his young brother Tito, and eventually, their daughter Nena. Until one fateful day changes everything.
Fifteen years later, Maricarmen and Nena find themselves in the middle of a murder investigation as the community that once rallied to support Rey turns against them. Now Nena, a teenager haunted by loss and betrayal and exploring her sexual identity, must learn to fight for herself and her family in a world not always welcoming. For lovers of the Neapolitan novels, This is the Only Kingdom is an immersive and moving portrait of a family – and a community – torn apart by generational grief, and a powerful love letter to mothers, daughters, and the barrios that make them.
“El Cantante”
The end of summer in el Caserío Padre Rivera meant the end of freedom. It meant back to Padre Rivera Elementary for the little kids, and the teenagers hoofing it to el pueblo in their scuffed loafers and starch-ironed hand-me-down uniforms. No more sleeping ’til noon for Cano, in his last year at UPR Humacao, and a return to early days at the parish for his older brother, David, a deacon soon to be an ordained priest. It meant long, quiet mornings in the neighborhood again: satos roaming the streets in packs, women sweeping their balconies in silence while the café brewed in la greca, men playing dominoes in la plaza, hustlers throwing dice under the shade of the flamboyán.
Every day after school, sixteen-year-old Maricarmen and her younger sister, Loli, walked past the basketball courts on their way home. Loli was only fourteen, but she was supposed to have dinner ready when their mother came home from work. While Loli finished her homework, a pot of arroz con salchichas simmering on the stove, Maricarmen went off to one of her after-school jobs. Some days, Maricarmen took care of the neighbor’s eight-year-old twins. Some days, she cleaned apartments. She’d speed past the basketball courts as she headed to work, the ballers pausing their game just to get a good look, calling out to her, “Mira, nena, where you going in such a hurry?”
One afternoon, Maricarmen was on her way to clean Doña Ma- tos’s apartment when she walked past the guys dribbling on the blacktop. She heard one of them wolf-whistle. She was still wear- ing her high school uniform, maroon skirt and white button-down shirt. She cut her eyes at him, kept walking.
“Leave that girl alone,” she heard Cano say. He was Doña Matos’s youngest son. He was in college, and barely spoke to Maricarmen when she was over at their house.
“I was just trying to talk to her,” the other guy said. “Hey, girl! Come here!”
“She’s in high school,” Cano said. “What’s wrong with you?”
“She’s in your house like every day. You mean to tell me you never even tried?”
Maricarmen climbed the steps to Doña Matos’s apartment, paying them no mind.
“Bye, Mari!” one of the guys called out.
She ignored him. It was always like this with them. A lot of jokes, flirting. She never took them seriously.
Doña Matos had already left for her shift at the hospital when Maricarmen let herself in. David was polishing off a bowl of sanco- cho at the small kitchen table, dipping bits of pan sobao in the broth and popping them into his mouth.
“Buenas tardes, Padre,” Maricarmen said, smiling as she shut the door behind her.
“I’m not ordained yet,” David said. He pointed at the bread on the table. “Sit. Eat, if you’re hungry.”
“I’m all right,” she said. She opened the storage closet and pulled out the cleaning supplies: a spray bottle, a pair of plastic gloves, and a cleaning towel. Maricarmen came every couple of weeks, two or three days in a row, depending on how long it took to finish the entire three-bedroom apartment. Usually, if she worked quickly, she could finish a room in half an hour, maybe two rooms in forty-five minutes. But when David was around, she took longer, talking as she cleaned, listening to his stories about mission trips to Cuba and Nicaragua, about priests telling jokes over red wine in Portugal.
Maricarmen waited for David to finish his sancocho before clearing the table. “So when’s the big day?” she asked. She sprayed and wiped the table.
“A few months.” David, who wore thick prescription glasses and a dress shirt, looked up at Maricarmen, nodding thoughtfully. “Just a few months now.”
Maricarmen smiled. He was gentle, David the deacon. Soft-spoken, sometimes a little nervous, but laughter always came easy to him. Sometimes, when he wasn’t telling her stories that made her throw her head back and roar, he was like this, pensive. What did they do all day, those priests? she wondered. Pray? Think?
“Do you think it’s hard?” she asked.
David slid back in his chair. “What do you mean?”
“You know. Like, never getting married. Never having children.” She considered how to say the rest, holding the towel and the spray bottle tightly. “Never being with a woman?”
David studied her. “Aren’t you a little too young to be worrying about those things?”
She thought about it. By the time her mother was sixteen, she was already married and pregnant with her. “No.”
David laughed. “Don’t try to grow up too soon, Mari.”
Maricarmen felt her face grow hot. David was twenty-five, nine years older than her, but he’d never made her feel like a kid before. She knew he hadn’t meant any harm. He was just looking out for her.
“Okay, old man,” she said. She smiled once more, sprayed the counter.
They were both unusually quiet after that, Maricarmen cleaning methodically and David retreating to the living room to watch TV.
On her way out, she stashed away the cleaning supplies and avoided saying goodbye to David. He’d fallen asleep on the couch, and she didn’t want to wake him.
Outside, instead of rushing past the basketball courts, she stood on the sidewalk, watching. The guys were still playing, but no one noticed her. She looked for Cano on the court, ran her fingers through her hair.
She watched them chase each other from one end of the court to the other, dribbling the basketball, taking shots. She unbuttoned the bottom of her shirt, then tied a knot high up on her waist, showing off her navel. She considered crossing the street to sit at one of the benches, but she didn’t think she was brave enough. She ran her fingers through her hair again.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Maricarmen jumped at her mother’s voice. She tugged on the knot on her shirt, tried to hide her belly with her hands, but her mother was no fool.
Blanca, red-faced and sweaty, carried her three-inch heels in one hand, her purse strapped across her body. She was barefoot on the sidewalk, breathing hard, her dark bob messy and stringy with sweat.
“What happened to your shoes, Mami?” Maricarmen asked, trying to distract her.
Blanca looked her up and down, ignoring the question. “You done parading yourself in front of the whole block?” She pulled Maricarmen’s shirt down, then pointed toward the basketball courts. “You think that these bandoleros are going to respect you?”
“I’m just heading home,” Maricarmen said. She turned for their building, but her mother grabbed her by the elbow.
“Don’t let me catch you with any of them, you hear me?” Blanca said, squeezing.
Maricarmen pulled away, forcing Blanca to loosen her grip. She was sick of her mother always grabbing her, humiliating her in front of her friends, their neighbors, yelling at her in front of whoever happened to be passing by. And she was sick of her mother always talking bad about “those people” in front of anyone who could hear her. Maricarmen’s family was one of the few white families in el Caserío, and Blanca thought that made them better. The truth was, Maricarmen and Loli were ashamed of the way their mother talked down to anyone who was even a shade darker than her. Maricarmen couldn’t wait to leave home.
Maricarmen gave her mother a look, one look, and hoped that Blanca understood exactly how she felt. She turned toward their apartment building, leaving her mother on the sidewalk alone.
This excerpt is from Jaquira Diaz’s new book, “This is the Only Kingdom,” which will be published on October 21st by Algonquin Books, a division of Hachette Book Group.”
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