The Glass Eaters

Vaz is well-known for her stories set in the unglamorous parts of the San Francisco East Bay, with their poignant images, crisp dialogue, and swift pacing. From the opening line of The Glass Eaters - "I was my mother's mother until I turned 16." - we know we're in for one of her most wrenchingly intimate portraits yet. The Glass Eaters sweeps us into the lives of Julia Duarte and her mother, Clarissa, a caterer-turned-ice sculptor, as Clarissa's long-term affair with a married man takes turns that are sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but finally a reminder of how everything except desire is fleeting. This is a story that pricks at our own secret hopes about what it means to love someone forever.