"A surreal debut novel set on the Texas-Mexico border, blending magical realism, sci-fi, and political parable to tell the story of an everyday man's tumble into a bizarre and sinister criminal underworld"-- - (Baker & Taylor)

In a world where narcotics are legal and extinct animals have been brought back to clothe, feed and amuse the super-rich, Esteban becomes immersed in a dangerous, psychedelic journey to find the mysterious Truffelpig, said to possess strange powers. Original. - (Baker & Taylor)

LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE. One of Tor.com's Best Books of 2019.

"Readers of this breakout work [will leave] thrilled and disoriented in equal measure." --Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

One of The Daily Beast's Best Summer Beach Reads of 2019, one of Lit Hub and The Millions's Most Anticipated Books of 2019, one of Buzzfeed and Tor.com's Books to Read This Spring, and one of the Chicago Review of Books' Best New Books of May

A parallel universe. South Texas. A third border wall might be erected between the United States and Mexico, narcotics are legal and there’s a new contraband on the market: filtered animals—species of animals brought back from extinction to amuse the very wealthy.

Esteban Bellacosa has lived in the border town of MacArthur long enough to know to keep quiet and avoid the dangerous syndicates who make their money through trafficking. But his simple life gets complicated after a swashbuckling journalist invites him to an underground dinner at which filtered animals are served. Bellacosa soon finds himself in the middle of an increasingly perilous and surreal journey, in the course of which he encounters legends of the long-disappeared Aranaña Indian tribe and their object of worship: the mysterious Trufflepig, said to possess strange powers.

Written with infectious verve, bold imagination, and oddball humor, Fernando A. Flores’s Tears of the Trufflepig is an absurdist take on life along the border, an ode to the myths of Mexican culture, and an introduction to a staggeringly smart new voice in American fiction.

Fernando A. Flores was born in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and grew up in South Texas. - (McMillan Palgrave)

Booklist Reviews

In a fictional yet eerily familiar near future, a food shortage has led to a rise in so-called filtering syndicates in south Texas, which kidnap scientists to produce artificial food and operate much like ruthless, real-life narcotics cartels. At the same time, Mexico's massive Olmec heads begin to disappear, and the Trufflepig, an otherworldly creature thought to exist only in ancient myth, shows up at an exclusive dinner party. At the center of this busy nexus is Esteban Bellacosa, a longtime resident of MacArthur, Texas, who lost his wife and child to the famine and who has kept his head down ever since to fly under the syndicates' radar. Bellacosa is quickly drawn into the drama when his brother, Oswaldo, appears unexpectedly with his mouth stitched shut with huarango thorns. Packed with other striking images and clever details, like the three canyon-sized concrete barriers that separate the U.S. from Mexico (and still fail to curb migration), this wildly imaginative, highly addicting, and ultimately endearing speculative first novel offers borderlands storytelling with an sf twist. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews.

Library Journal Reviews

Esteban Bellacosa, like many in the south Texas border town of MacArthur, makes a tenuous living by hustling deals and facilitating cross-border business schemes. The legalization of all drugs, a burgeoning trade in once-extinct animal species (resurrected by a process known as filtering), and Mexico's catastrophic economic collapse have created a situation far removed from his former life as a small-business owner and family man. Esteban's wife and daughter are dead, his dentist brother Oswaldo has been kidnapped, and his daily social interactions are often limited to banter with the always-changing crew of waitresses at his favorite diner. So when journalist acquaintance Paco Herbert invites him to a mysterious, invitation-only dinner party featuring filtered animals, he decides to go, setting off events that push them even deeper into the violent mysteries along the border. The political reality of our present is all too easily recognized in this version of the future. VERDICT Austinite writer/bookseller Flores has created a nightmarish if fascinating vision of a borderland of multiple, parallel walls; designer genetic experimentation; and grisly violence—all dabbed liberally with folkloric strokes. For fans of magical realism and near-future settings, e.g., Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, and of Hunter S. Thompson's psychedelic energy.—Jennifer B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll. Northeast

Publishers Weekly Reviews

A near-future picaresque of genetic manipulation, indigenous legend, and organized crime on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, Flores's delirious debut never quite delivers on its imaginative premise. Bellacosa, a freelance South Texas construction equipment locator, gets drafted by journalist Paco Herbert to attend an "underground dinner" where wealthy invitees eat extinct animals that have been recreated through the process of "filtering." Among the living amusements is a Trufflepig, a "piglike reptile" central to the mythology of the (fictional) Aranaña tribe. Once home, Bellacosa is greeted by his brother, who has just escaped a Mexican syndicate attempting to shrink his head and sell it as an Aranaña artifact. Bellacosa himself is soon kidnapped by a crooked border patrolman and, in the sequence leading to the story's conclusion, hooked with electrodes to a Trufflepig that transforms his psyche into "the memory of all living things." Flores's novel is jam-packed with excitement, but his inability to prioritize his ideas prevents them from cohering into a credible vision of dystopia. Despite this, Flores's novel shows he has talent and creativity to spare. (May)