Woman of Light

Every family has that member, the one with the memory of an elephant, who with ease can recount generations’ worth of stories about the family tree (and its roots). If we are smart, we venerate this kin. In a very literal sense, they are our direct line to our history. They help light our way with the lessons of our past. Woman of Light, Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s dazzling debut novel, is a direct embodiment of this tradition and a gift to every reader enthralled by a good family saga.

Centered around three generations of the Lopez family, Woman of Light takes place primarily in 1930s Denver—a place and time where the west remained wild. At the heart of this story is Luz “Little Light” Lopez. She is a young woman on the margins of the margins, living with her older brother and aunt and eking out a living as a laundress and occasional tea leaf reader. Luz also possesses great tenacity and a profound connection to her ancestors. Over the many remarkable pages of this novel, Luz serves as a compelling witness to history unfolding in real time. She sees halting progress, but also rising violence and social tensions. At the center of it all, Luz is on a journey to see what is inside of herself as a young woman coming into her own. What do the leaves hold for us really? She faces that question boldly time and again and wins the reader over each time.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine is quickly establishing herself as one of our modern masters. Her sentences sing and her grasp of character and atmosphere is vividly cinematic. Pick up this book and gift yourself the chance to read a genuinely remarkable novel!

“There is one every generation—a seer who keeps the stories.”

Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930s Denver on her own, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors’ origins, how her family flourished and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.

Written in Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s singular voice, the wildly entertaining and complex lives of the Lopez family fill the pages of this multigenerational western saga. Woman of Light is a transfixing novel about survival, family secrets, and love, filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, all of whom are just as special, memorable, and complicated as our beloved heroine, Luz.