Dutton A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens Dutton A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
Dutton A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens Dutton A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens

A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens

By Raul Palma

$27.00

Publication Date: October 3, 2023

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A genre-bending debut with a fiercely political heart, A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens explores the weight of the devil’s bargain, following the lengths one man will go to for the promise of freedom.

    Since his wife died, Hugo Contreras’s debt from her medical bills has become insurmountable. His world in Miami has shrunk. He shuffles between his efficiency apartment, La Carreta (his favorite place for a cafecito), and a botanica in a strip mall where he works as the resident babaláwo.

    One day, Hugo’s nemesis calls. Alexi Ramirez is a debt collector who has been hounding Hugo for years, and Hugo assumes this call is just more of the same. Except this time Alexi is calling because he needs spiritual help. His house is haunted. Alexi proposes a deal: If Hugo can successfully cleanse his home before Noche Buena, Alexi will forgive Hugo’s debt. Hugo reluctantly accepts, but there’s one issue: Despite being a babaláwo, he doesn’t believe in spirits.

    Hugo plans to do what he’s done with dozens of clients before: use sleight of hand and amateur psychology to convince Alexi the spirits have departed. But when the job turns out to be more than Hugo bargained for, Hugo’s old tricks don’t work. Memories of his past—his childhood in the Bolivian silver mines and a fraught crossing into the United States as a boy—collide with Alexi’s demons in an explosive climax.

    Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens explores questions of visibility, migration, and what we owe—to ourselves, our families, and our histories.

Story Locale:Miami, FL

About the Author

Raul Palma is a second-generation Cuban American, born and raised in Miami. His short story collection, In These Cities of Ultraviolet Light, won the 2021 Don Belton Prize. His writing has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Best Small Fictions 2018, and elsewhere, and he is currently an Assistant Professor of Writing at Ithaca College.

Author Residence: Ithaca, NY

Author Hometown: Miami, FL

Format: Hardcover

Length: 288 pages

Publisher: Dutton

Publication Date: October 3, 2023

ISBN: 9780593472118

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