For Your Reading List

Credit: Harper; Carrie Allen

Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore

Elizabeth Wetmore's debut novel opens serenely. "Sunday morning begins out here in the oil patch," she writes, describing a "young roughneck" sleeping in his truck, "boots propped up on the dashboard," cowboy hat resting over his face. But it's not a narrator describing the scene; it's a girl sitting outside the truck. And there's no sense of calm in it for her. The roughneck's smooth face is one "that will never need a daily shave, no matter how old he gets," Wetmore writes, gearing up for a jarring pivot —

"but she is hoping he dies young."

This is our introduction to Gloria, the 14-year-old Mexican girl at the center of this weighty, affecting book. It takes place in 1970s Odessa, Texas, a beautiful but dismal, remote oil town — hours from the closest city, and then hours from that city to the next one — that is plagued by racism and misogyny only heightened by the workers (or roughnecks) passing through. The roughneck we meet at the beginning, Dale Strickland, has brutally raped Gloria, leaving her so beaten as to terrify Mary Rose, the very pregnant mother whose porch Gloria escapes to, and whose daughter calls the police when Dale shows up, too.

From here, the radius of Gloria's impact expands — to Corinne, the widow whose late husband watched Gloria get into Dale's car and is haunted by their failure to stop her; Debra Ann, Corinne's young, plucky neighbor who befriends a homeless vet; and Ginny, Corinne's young mom, who's left her daughter and husband to find a life of her own. It's through the perspectives of these women and girls that we watch the drama unfold in a town dead set on privileging a white rapist over a Mexican victim — and though Wetmore gets close to the trappings of a "white savior" narrative (Mary Rose, who will testify against Dale, often speaks up in defense of Gloria despite being harassed by daily threatening phone calls) Mary Rose's own demons, and her ambivalence about helping Gloria, adds dimension to and complicates the story.

Ultimately, this story is so rich, the prose so masterful, that it's hard to believe this is Wetmore's debut. I was blown away by the first page and hated putting it down. Get your copy. —Arianna Rebolini