Las Historias prohibidas de Marta Veneranda

A daisy chain of eight interlinking stories that reads like a novel, this collection from Cuban-born writer Sonia Rivera-Valdes introduces a circle of loosely connected Latin immigrants in New York City. She begins with Mayte, a Cuban journalist who is married but tormented by her love for her female cousin. Next, readers meet Mayte's coworker Rodolfo as he indulges his uncontrollable lust for a malodorous 400-pound neighbor. Then on to Rodolfo's friend, a gay man oddly obsessed with heterosexual porn, and a bizarre quadrangle of adultery that ends in a double murder. In this wry panoply of intense connections, shamed confessions, embarrassment, sex, and secret love, the steamy side of New York City takes on the flavor of recent arrivals from Cuba, Guatemala, and other Latin countries.