Excerpt from Autobiography of Cotton by Cristina Rivera Garza, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Petra allows him to continue. While he is speaking in a low voice, complaining of this or that, she continues with her tasks: she's putting two tortillas to toast on her anafre to give to the children when they appear from time to time. It seems like they are going to have upset stomachs, she murmurs. The ash will do them good. The trouble with living practically in the open air, first under a canopy, hurriedly erected using mesquite branches, and then in this small wooden shack smeared with adobe, is that the children put all sorts of things in their mouths. The good part is that they can run free and come home safe. She stays there, stationed before the anafre, watching them running back and forth. They will soon be able to help out a little. In time, two years at most, they will be able to do things like the other children in the camps: follow them along the rows and help them to remove the cotton bolls, using only the very tips of their fingers. In time, they will be able to stop playing with soil and begin to work it. Until then, they have to be cared for. Protected from themselves. Guided.

At least we knew we'd be paid at the end of the week back there, he muttered, turning to face her. His almond-shaped eyes, topped by heavy lids, scrutinize her reaction. Feeling watched, Petra focuses even more deeply on what she is doing. Her small hands touch the tortillas as they slowly acquire a dark tone that, just as slowly, takes on the appearance of coal. One tortilla face up; one on its back. The soft crackling of the fire. But back there, you might have died at any moment, she says without looking at him, in a brusque but firm tone; the sort that leaves no room for reply. A declaration of the facts. He gets to his feet and, turning his back on her, looks out to where his land ends. Back there. Scenes that race through his head: dark wells you could descend into with the help of a winch, the smell of methane gas or firedamp, rock falling from a rocky sky. Hands blackened by coal. Face. Mouth. Tongue. But back there, it was up to me, he sighed into the air. He said it to the sky that was slowly moving toward evening.

Now that he isn't looking at her, Petra can look at him unashamedly. The black hair trimmed evenly over a thin but sturdy neck. Slender shoulders. Long legs in tight-fitting, city pants. Why did he dress that way, as if he was always getting ready to leave? If she could, she would get inside his silences. If she could, she would remove the weight that descends on him unexpectedly from who knows where and makes his laughter fade. And I've told you, José María, told you so many times, how much I like it when you laugh. Your eyes shine and your lips, your face, your whole body, they all shine. When you laugh, you're the best thing that has ever happened to me. If I were able, I'd say something like that to you, but I can't or don't want to. Dusk is beginning to fall and the children, who have been entertaining themselves crumbling clods of dirt or chasing the chickens, are returning now, hungry or sleepy. Come here, she says to the eldest, 14 and she smooths his hair, combing it back behind his ears. Just look at you, she exclaims when the little girl comes to her with one corner of her dress pulled up to her shoulder. You should go instead of staying here, Chema, Petra says to her husband. Go where? You know full well they are holding an assembly. They'll be talking with that newcomer. We'd at least find out how things are going. When their parents are silent, the children swirl around the woman's knees, trying to climb up onto her lap. She lifts the little girl, and without taking her eyes off the boy's back, she snuggles her close. The sound of her voice when she talks childishly. The smile of one who feels herself cuddled. A very young mother and two kids. The picture makes him shiver. The image forces him to blink first and then to smile. She's his woman, he tells himself in wonder. His wife and two children. At least there's that, he sighs after a while. Quickly, as though needing to act before changing his mind, he enters the shack and, with equal haste, exits with his 30-30 in his right hand. His strides are long.

Excerpted from Autobiography of Cotton by Cristina Rivera Garza. Copyright © 2026 by Cristina Rivera Garza. Excerpted by permission of Graywolf Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.