Marcela Fuentes achieves a dream with successful release of ‘Malas’

A curse, a looming quinceañera, a mysterious old woman and a rebellious, punk-loving teen form the thundering heart of Malas, the debut novel by Marcela Fuentes. Set in a fictional border town that resembles the author’s home turf of Del Rio, Texas, Malas enjoyed the rarefied distinction of becoming a Good Morning America book club selection upon its publication in June 2024.

Publishers Weekly described Fuentes, an associate professor of creative writing at TCU, as “a seamless storyteller” who penned a narrative “rich in Mexican culture and fully realized characterizations.”

Per Carribean Fragoza, who reviewed Malas for The New York Times, Fuentes imbues her characters with “something that many of us nonfictional people living and messing up in the world could use, and give back — grace.”

Fuentes, who spent a dozen years working on the novel, said the effusive praise feels like a protracted pinch-me moment, validating her life choices and commitment to her craft.

“I’m a late-blooming debut author for sure,” said the 49-year-old. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been motivated to see my name in lights, but this whole thing has been one great, long opportunity to talk about books.”

South Texas Roots

Malas was a “Good Morning America” book club selection in June 2024.

Growing up crisscrossing the border with Mexico, Fuentes excelled not only in the classroom but also in escaramuza, an athletic and artistic competition on horseback. Female riders, donning skirts long enough to cover their steed’s haunches, ride sidesaddle while executing complex choreography to music.

Fuentes’ father founded and recruited members of the startup team to give her and other Del Rio-area girls opportunities to learn and perform.

Roberto Fuentes “was a real dreamer, a very imaginative and energetic guy who’d grown up poor and wouldn’t let his children work while we were in high school,” his daughter said. She dedicated Malas to her best friend and to her dad, who died in 2015.

After high school, Fuentes moved to Austin for college. She delighted in the city’s music scene, something that decades later informed Malas. “My dad instilled in me this love of music,” she said. “The novel is very much a music novel.”

After graduating, she worked for a TV production company as a translator but soon returned to her hometown, where she found a job at the local library.

Her son, Xavier Fuentes, was born a little more than two decades ago. At that point, Fuentes said, “I suddenly realized what was important to me.” She promised her father she would enroll in a Master of Fine Arts program to pursue her long-held dream of becoming a novelist.

Back to School

Days after Fuentes was accepted to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she became engaged to Eric Burgess, a biomedical engineer. They wed in August 2007, the weekend before she enrolled in the country’s premier program for aspiring authors.

For one assignment she turned in 40 pages that would become the opening scenes for Malas.

“The first chapter is all about August and South Texas when I was missing the heat,” Fuentes said.

Those early pages seeded her debut novel, which begins on a scorching day in the summer of 1951. A mysterious older woman accosts a heavily pregnant local beauty named Pilar Aguirre, accusing her of stealing her husband. At the end of the unsettling encounter, the woman curses Pilar and her family. Pilar soon finds herself questioning her husband and the life they’ve built together as they prepare to welcome a second child.

The story then jumps to the 1990s, introducing readers to Lucha “Lulu” Muñoz — the book’s other “mala,” or “bad girl.” Though Lulu does well in school, she rebels against her alcoholic father’s oppressive rules by becoming a punk band’s lead singer.

Lulu is also dreading her quinceañera, especially the fancy dress girls typically wear at the party to celebrate their 15th birthdays. When Lulu’s grandmother dies, she meets the now-reclusive Pilar at the funeral. Family secrets begin to unfold against a dreamlike setting peppered with authentic details drawn from Fuentes’ childhood. Think rodeos, music, backyard barbecues and more.

Those characters and the tale of a girl and a woman struggling against expectations and grief followed Fuentes after she graduated. Initially she remained in Iowa while her husband pursued a doctorate in math.

When her husband followed his mentor to Georgia, Fuentes began a PhD program in English at Georgia State. Upon graduating, she became the James C. McCreight Fiction Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. She worked on Malas and other stories while teaching, something she’d grown to love.

“Teaching students that they can do it, that if they continue to revise and submit things, one day I’ll see their books on my shelves … that’s very satisfying to me,” she said. She understands that sharing work with peers and faculty can make any student feel vulnerable, so she tries to create an atmosphere of support and trust.

Marcela Fuentes wanted “Malas” to portray real life in a Texas-Mexico border community, with its rich culture and traditions.

“One of the reasons I still write with regularity is because of Marcela,” said Khaliah Williams, an Iowa classmate. “In our cohort there were not many people of color, and she became someone to share my frustrations and excitement with. She’s such a good cheerleader for the people around her.”

During the long germination of Malas, Fuentes published stories and essays, including two rooted in her South Texas childhood for Texas Highways. She won the prestigious Pushcart Prize for a short story published in the summer of 2021 titled “The Observable World,” featuring an unhappy couple at a dog park.

All the while, Malas occupied her heart and mind.

“I definitely wanted to paint a picture of a border community that isn’t whatever you see on TV,” Fuentes said, “because I feel like anytime you see something on TV it’s never an accurate portrait of who lives there and what it’s like.”

Dazzling Debut

Fuentes struggled with the book’s dual timeline until she read Rebecca Makkai’s celebrated 2018 AIDS novel, The Great Believers. Everything began to fall into place for her own book, and she landed a literary agent in 2022.

Thirteen imprints vied for Malas that fall; Laura Tisdel, executive editor at Viking Penguin, sealed the deal.

“This book felt like a really useful portrait of life on the border that wasn’t about policy,” Tisdel said. “It was an old-fashioned love of the story that really brought me to the book. Everybody here who read it with me on submission felt the same way.”

Tisdel acquired Malas in a two-book deal. She and Fuentes are collaborating on edits for a collection of short stories, My Heart Has More Rooms Than a Whorehouse, slated for publication in 2026.

Fuentes was fine-tuning Malas when TCU recruited her in August 2023.

“Teaching students that they can do it, that if they continue to revise and submit things, one day I’ll see their books on my shelves … that’s very satisfying to me.”
Marcela Fuentes

From the outset, Fuentes proved an ideal fit for the AddRan College of Liberal Arts, said Sharon Weltman, professor and chair of English. “Her students love her, and the faculty actually chose Malas for our book club — yes, we have our own book club.”

Good Morning America made the novel its June 2024 book club selection, a boon for any author, let alone a debut novelist. The morning show announced the news while introducing Fuentes on-air to audiences.

“I had to keep it a secret for over a year, and it’s definitely one of the most exciting things that’s ever happened to me,” Fuentes said. “When you’re writing your novel it’s just you and your book, so I’m really grateful to be on the receiving end of so much positive feedback.”

While writing Malas, she developed a playlist, available on Spotify, of 39 songs ranging from Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” to “Bad Reputation” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. It includes four songs by Selena, the late Queen of Tejano music who features as a pivotal plot point for Lulu, the character who took the most time for Fuentes to crack.

“Kids often feel so confident, and it’s mostly because they don’t even know what they don’t know,” she said. “Lulu is a tough talker, but she’s also a child with real emotion that she tries to hide.”

But by the last of Malas’ 384 pages, readers will know the girl, understand how tragedy shaped the difficult old lady and perhaps even long to spend a hot August day in a South Texas town.