Mesha Maren | Perpetual West (IN STORE)

In Perpetual West, Alex and Elana leave their small Virginia town to forge a new beginning. Alex, who was born in Mexico but raised in the U.S. by white Pentecostal parents, is drawn to the place of his origins, so the couple heads to El Paso and then across the river to Juárez. Alex immerses himself in the culture of Mexican wrestling and falls in love with Mateo, a lucha libre fighter. When Alex suddenly disappears, Elana is uncertain whether he has been kidnapped or has run away, and her search for him—in a foreign land where her language skills are limited—takes her on an uncharted journey into unspoken truths about Alex, about herself, and about their lives together. Amid the suspense, Mesha Maren delves deeply into perceptions of authenticity, queer identity, and our received wisdom about both the U.S. and Mexico.

Join us to celebrate the paperback release of this ambitious and striking novel.

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Mesha Maren is the author of Sugar Run. Her work has appeared in the Oxford American, the Guardian, Tin House, the Southern Review, and elsewhere. She was the recipient of the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize, an Elizabeth George Foundation grant and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Ucross Foundation. She is an assistant professor at Duke University and also serves as a NEA Writing Fellow at the federal prison camp in Alderson, West Virginia.