Eating Ashes

Earlier this week, Brenda Navarro’s novel Eating Ashes was made available in English for the first time. It was translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell. It follows a Mexican family to Spain, where they experience xenophobia and a worsening sense of belonging. The unnamed narrator’s younger brother, Diego, ultimately takes his own life, further fracturing the family. This is a frank look at immigration, mental health, and picking up the pieces after tragic loss.

What I Liked:

• It feels like a therapy session or journal entry. Much of Eating Ashes feels stream-of-consciousness, like we’re experiencing the narrator’s thoughts and feelings in the same instant that she does. Some chapters feel like we’re a therapist hearing about her troubled life; others are written in the second person, putting us in the position of her mother as she blames her problems on absentee parenting. The story is unfiltered, raw, and even uncomfortable in its delivery.
• Immigrant experience. The narrator and her family are Mexican and grow up in a poor area of Mexico. But years after their mother moves to Spain, the narrator and her brother Diego also relocate to Madrid. Unfortunately, both experience daily racism and xenophobia there. Diego is bullied at school; the narrator often feels adrift and misunderstood. It’s not a pretty portrait of immigration, but it is an eye-opening one.
• Mental health and dysfunctional families. The primary event of Eating Ashes is that Diego dies by suicide while living in Madrid. Through snapshot-like chapters before and after, we learn of his poor mental health, his anger, and his sense of displacement. The narrator also describes the abuses she and Diego suffered growing up, adding to the trauma and lack of safety net felt by the siblings.

What Didn’t Work for Me:

• Lack of resolution. This book is a tough read from the beginning, and the whole novel feels like snapshots of what the main character has gone though. As the ending drew near, I found myself wondering how it would all wrap up. Ultimately, though, the ending was abrupt and didn’t offer any real resolution. Indeed, it was true to the whole tone of the novel, but may be unsatisfying to some readers.

Audiobook:

Angela Juarez does an excellent job of narrating Eating Ashes. She captures so much of the narrator’s personality: rage, sarcasm, caring sister, fed up with everything. The voice acting extends to giving the narrator a sobbing delivery in certain chapters, amplifying the grief of losing her brother. This audiobook elevates the whole story.

Final Thoughts

Eating Ashes is an unflinching but short novel, diving into the psyche of an immigrant family torn apart by loss. It’s not an easy read, but it is powerful and memorable. I hope to read more from Brenda Navarro in the future.

Special thanks to W. W. Norton & Company, Highbridge Audio, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Get the Book

You can buy Eating Ashes here – it’s available as a hardcover, ebook, and audiobook.

Eating Ashes by Brenda Navarro
Translator	Megan McDowell
Audiobook Narrator	Angela Juarez
Audience	Adult
Genre	Literary Fiction
Setting	Mexico; Spain
Number of Pages	240
Format I Read	Audiobook & Ebook (NetGalley ARCs)
Original Publication Date	January 20, 2025
Publisher	Liveright

Official Summary

SOON TO BE A MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY DIEGO LUNA

An arrestingly beautiful, award-winning novel about separation, migration, and love left behind.

Alone and adrift in Barcelona, an unnamed narrator is haunted by the death of her teenage brother, Diego. Diego, the little boy she helped raise in Mexico while their mother struggled to make a living in Spain. Diego, who loved Vampire Weekend and dreamed of becoming a pilot. Diego, who hated Madrid as much as she did.

Now, his ashes in hand, she must return to Mexico. Plagued by memories, she recounts their young lives leading up to tragedy in blistering detail: the acute loneliness that accompanied their emigration; the siblings’ first separation, when she left for Barcelona to make her own way in the world; her activism against labor abuses, which is threatened by her tumultuous relationship with an entitled lover; and the final, heavyhearted confrontation with her brother. Caught between rage and heartbreak over the loss of Diego, she pieces together a story of alienation, but also of surprising courage and hope.

Masterfully translated by National Book Award winner Megan McDowell, and shot through with flashes of dark humor, Eating Ashes boldly confronts both the intimate and systemic struggles faced by migrants striving to build a life worth living. Already an international sensation across Europe, this novel cements Brenda Navarro as a breathtakingly unique and vital voice in literature.