Particulate Matter Hardcover by Felicia Luna Lemus

Product Details

• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd. (2020-11-10)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 144 pages
• ISBN-13: 9781617758416
• Item Weight: 567.0 grams
• Dimensions: 0.0 x 0.0 x 0.0 cm

In concise and distilled prose, Lemus presents a collection of still lifes, landscapes, and portraits of a challenging year that threatened all she loved most.

“A love story that’s profoundly rooted in the emotional, geographical, and sociopolitical terrain of today . . . Like song lyrics or snapshots, her wisps and fragments of language take on a coded and otherworldly atmosphere, one that conveys wonder and dread almost subliminally . . . Particulate Matter is a moving example of how to write about climate change, not didactically, but with the deep impact of both personal loss and literary elegance.” —NPR Books

“A tiny, powerful flame of a book. Lemus’ writing lands like sparks and ash, fragmented and tinged with grief . . . Particulate Matter is . . . an exploration of the simultaneity of delight, yearning, grief and confusion of being in love with a person and a place. Of being alive at all.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Particulate Matter is the story of a year in Felicia Luna Lemus’s marriage when the world turned upside down. It’s set in Los Angeles, and it’s about love and crisis, loss and grief, the city and the ocean, ancestral ghosts and history haunting. Nature herself seemed to howl. Fires raged and covered the house Lemus and her spouse shared in ash. Everything crystallized. It was the most challenging and terrifying time she had ever experienced, and yet it was also a time when the sublime beauty of the everyday shone through with particular power and presence.

About the Author

FELICIA LUNA LEMUS is the author of Particulate Matter, and the novels Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties and Like Son. Her writing has been anthologized in numerous collections, and has appeared in publications including BOMB, the Believer, ZYZZYVA, and the California Sunday Magazine. Lemus is currently the Visiting Writer at Pitzer College. Sharpie Ultra Fine black markers and crossword puzzles are among her favorite things. She lives in the Los Angeles area with her spouse and their wild one.