The White Hot

“The White Hot has the effect of pressing your hand to a barbed live wire. April’s is one of the most memorable voices I’ve encountered in recent fiction: insouciant, observant, endlessly curious… . The buoyancy and cheer of In the Heights are replaced here by April’s sardonic, lacerating wit and Hudes’s brilliant depiction of a woman learning to transform her rage into something resembling transcendence. Siddhartha might call that enlightenment.”—The New York Times Book Review“In The White Hot, Quiara Alegría Hudes has written the brown Latina modern-day Siddhartha that Hermann Hesse never saw coming. Here is a necessary takedown of the patriarchy—a book written for everyone, but especially for those of us whose moms fled because escaping was the only option. I wish this masterpiece had existed for teenage me. Gracias, Hudes, for gifting us April Soto, a force of a voice that will stay with me forever.”—Javier Zamora, author of Solito“April Soto has fled her life but has left us The White Hot—at once a reclaiming, a credo, and a heartrending letter to a beloved daughter from an unforgettable mother. In wise, searing prose, Quiara Alegría Hudes fills in a daughter’s lost history while treating us to a stunning debut about the passions that whisper: to honor what you love, leave. The White Hot articulates our beautiful, unspeakable wildernesses… . Dignified, sexy, and true, with lines (‘A mother is a life sentence’; ‘How could love look like leaving?’) burned indelibly into my heart.”—Marie-Helene Bertino, author of Beautyland“I read The White Hot in one sitting. Ruthless, visceral, immersive, uncompromising, and relentless, this is one of the most heartwrenching literary rides you will ever take in your life, the kind of book you will immediately want to buy for all the mothers and daughters in your life. It’s an extraordinary debut!”—Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana “Bold and utterly original, The White Hot is a literary family thriller that reckons with the price we—and those we leave behind—must pay for our freedom. It is primordial scream meets brilliant argument, and it will forever change what you think is possible for art to achieve.”—Jennifer Croft, author of The Extinction of Irena Rey “[A] stunning fiction debut … In blunt yet vibrantly lyrical prose, Hudes reveals the good, the bad, and the profane from April’s brutally candid perspective… . It’s a profound journey of the soul… . This staggering gut punch of a novel shows that sometimes love looks like leaving.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review“The potent debut novel from playwright and memoirist Hudes … takes the form of a letter written by April Soto, 26, to her 10-year-old daughter, Noelle, which Noelle is meant to read when she turns 18… . The end of April’s letter is gut-wrenching, but the novel offers profound clarity… . This sizzles.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Quiara Alegría Hudes is the Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright of Water by the Spoonful and the musical In the Heights, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical, and which she adapted for the screen. Her memoir, My Broken Language, was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Cut, The Nation, and American Theater Magazine. She is co-founder with her cousin Sean of the prison writing program Emancipated Stories.