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Entrancing and sentimental, told with wit and sharp insight, The Holy Days of Gregorio Pasos examines the joys and traumas of the Latinx American experience through the lens of a young man awakening to the nuances of identity, love, colonization, and home.
As Gregorio recovers from a soccer injury, he relives a decisive period of his life when he is eighteen and adrift. His parents are divorcing, his sister is estranged, and his poor goalkeeping has just cost his soccer team their most important game of the season. As a graduation present, Gregorio’s defiant uncle Nico takes him to Colombia, where he is introduced to old friends, family memories, and a culture ailing after years of conflict and colonization. When they return, Gregorio follows in his uncle’s footsteps and pursues employment at an art museum in Washington, D.C., where he moves into the basement of a townhouse owned by Magdalena, a Basque exile he befriends. As the year wends on and anti-immigrant rhetoric reaches an apex, Gregorio notes the disparities in his community while struggling to define his own identity and direction. Gregorio joins his friend Raúl’s soccer team, resuming his role as goalkeeper, seeking purpose and redemption.
The Holy Days of Gregorio Pasos is a compassionate story of benevolence, memory, and preservation that considers what has been lost, what must never be forgotten, and our collective responsibility to one another. Poetic and thoughtful, Rodrigo Restrepo Montoya has given us an unforgettable voice in Gregorio Pasos: astute, charming, and illuminating.
"Meditative and direct, Restrepo Montoya’s prose illuminates truths so clearly you can see straight through them to the world around you, and even into yourself. Prescient and timeless, dealing with the inseparability of life and decay, this story, through it all, allowed me to sit deeply with love, family, and forgiveness. Pay attention, a refreshingly honest and singular voice has arrived."
— Dantiel Moniz, author of Milk Blood Heat
"The Holy Days of Gregorio Pasos is a slim novel that travels far and makes a meaningful, revelatory journey. Gregorio's voice, without straining for effect, is solemn yet pleasing, utterly irresistible, placing the reader under a spell of turning pages from start to finish. Rodrigo Restrepo Montoya's debut novel doesn't shy away from real problems, and it does so with a heartening—and heartrending—combination of sensitivity and candor."
— Jamel Brinkley, author of A Lucky Man and Witness
"The Holy Days of Gregorio Pasos is a testament to the beauty and searing heartbreak of learning and becoming. Restrepo Montoya's prose is sincere and inviting, allowing the reader to feel every line. One of my favorites of the year."
— Gary Lovely, Prologue Bookshop (Columbus, Ohio)
"[Gregorio's] emotional generosity infuses what is a very serious book about loss—of jobs, of people, of stolen indigenous land, of home and even the idea of it—with a sense of quiet hope. Through Gregorio, Restrepo Montoya poses big questions about the nature of forgiveness and love, and what it means to live a life with an open heart. When it comes to Gregorio Pasos, 'holy' is the absolute right word. An absolutely gorgeous book from a notable new voice in fiction."
—Wendy J. Fox, Electric Literature
"I was alternatively exhilarated and giddy with Restrepo Montoya’s gently intelligent, effortlessly humorous story of the novel’s title character as he experiences small moments of self-realization and enlightenment both in the United States and his homeland of Colombia. And as I dug deeper into the novel, I found myself cheering on this sometimes perplexed but always striving protagonist who sometimes plays the role of spectator in a world filled with contradictions, mystery, and ultimately beauty. Simply put, Restrepo Montoya is a talented and mature craftsman who has written a debut novel that delights and edifies the reader through its humor and humanity."
—Daniel A. Olivas, Latino Book Review
"Restrepo Montoya debuts with a compassionate and peripatetic coming-of-age tale about a young Colombian American man... Restrepo Montoya succeeds at capturing the restless energy of youth.”
— Publishers Weekly
"The Holy Days of Gregorio Pasos is a debut so deeply felt, so effortlessly human, it feels like we've known Gregorio all of our lives. A slyly funny, slyly somber novel about family, heritage and the burden of finding a home in America. By turns playful and profound, familiar and new, The Holy Days of Gregorio Pasos is brilliant and Restrepo Montoya a natural and gifted storyteller."
— Mark Haber, author of Saint Sebastian’s Abyss & Reinhardt’s Garden
"Tender and balanced and true. I read it in a day and received it like aloe, like a quiet blessing. The kind of book for which, upon completion, one feels grateful, nourished, and well, very lucky."
— Tariq Shah, author of Whiteout Conditions
"At the center of any great book is a character who connects with the reader—one who pulls us into their dilemmas and asks us to confront their struggle alongside them, to meet the people they do, and to immerse ourselves in their world. The Holy Days of Gregorio Pasos, the debut novel by Colombian-American writer Rodrigo Restrepo Montoya, is one such book: a wonderful story that should not be overlooked by contemporary readers... Rodrigo Restrepo Montoya’s work is wonderful. This story is told with a playful, vivid and bouncy wit, writing Gregorio Pasos with the mercurial wisdom of an insider."
—Edward Banchs, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"As Gregorio convalesces from having some ribs busted in a soccer game, he looks back on a formative stretch of years of his life: his parents splitting up, his graduation from high school in Connecticut, living with his dying uncle Nico who takes him to Colombia, and his return to the States and his encounters and experiences there. There’s a warmth and solemnity to Gregorio’s voice, as he reflects on death and strain, and the almost inarticulable woe of being an immigrant in the States post-2016. Restrepo Montoya, with poignancy, precision, and subtle force, explores the choices that lead us to the places we end up, and what we carry with us in memory and in action... There’s love at the core of the book, for family, for teammates and pals, for partners... Gregorio is observant, sensitive, funny, and a goalkeeper, too, guarded, guarding, keeping close and active watch."
—Nina MacLaughlin, The Boston Globe
"A young Colombian American grapples with injury, a fractured family and his personal identity in this transnational coming-of-age journey."
—New York Times
"Rodrigo Restrepo Montoya has crafted a debut novel that overflows with generosity, honesty, tenderness, and hope... As I was reading Montoya’s words, I was nodding at the dexterity in which it moves between two worlds: the U.S. and Colombia... This novel doesn’t shy away from narrating stories about Colombia’s violent history or talking about death or grief, and yet, the prose carries everything with luminosity and grace. Gregorio Pasos is a singular character. One that, despite the incredible grief and hardship his family has experienced, narrates the world with an ease that makes every page shine with empathy and wonder. Gregorio remains curious and open to the world around him. He contemplates finding his path while not leaving behind everything that has made him who he is."
—María Alejandra Barrios, The Rumpus
"Deeply compelling and impactful, The Holy Days of Gregorio Pasos by Rodrigo Restrepo Montoya is a stunning reflection on community, grief, and cultural identity... Marked by a sparse, understated style that masterfully conveys the varied emotions welling under its surface, Holy Days is a carefully conceived and stirring debut. Restrepo Montoya’s bildungsroman explores themes of loss, political instability, and fraught family dynamics with a nuance that is impressive in a book of such brevity. It is a subtle work that carefully observes the world it inhabits, portraying it with bare sincerity, achingly attentive to the small intricacies that shape people’s lives. It reveals its brilliance quietly, under its breath, offering readers a moving story that will linger in their minds long after the last page has been turned."
—Isabella Pilotta Gois, Latino Book Review