Registration now closed

Alejandro Varela | La Comunidad Reads with Lupita Aquino

The People Who Report More Stress

Author Alejandro Varela joins Lupita Aquino - better known as Lupita.Reads - to discuss his collection of short stories, "The People Who Report More Stress."

Lupita Aquino invites you to join her new book club, La Comunidad Reads, an author-inclusive club that aims to build a space where Latine-authored books are magnified for all readers!

For this meeting of the La Comunidad Reads Book Club, Lupita sits down with short story author Alejandro Varela to talk about his newest collection of short stories The People Who Report More Stress. The interconnected stories use humor to address the impact of microaggressions, racism and social stress factors on people of color. This chronic stress can take a toll on your physical and mental health and the best antidote is community and solidarity.

About Alejandro Varela

Alejandro Varela (he/him) is a writer based in New York. His debut novel, The Town of Babylon (2022), was published by Astra House and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His work has appeared in The Point Magazine, Georgia Review, Boston Review, Harper’s, and The Offing, among others outlets. Varela is an editor-at-large of Apogee Journal. He has a Master’s Degree in Public Health.

About The People Who Report More Stress

The People Who Report More Stress is a collection of interconnected stories brimming with the anxieties of people who retreat into themselves while living in the margins, acutely aware of the stresses that modern life takes upon the body and the body politic.

In "Midtown-West Side Story," lvaro, a restaurant worker struggling to support his family, begins selling high-end designer clothes to his co-workers, friends, neighbors, and the restaurant's regulars in preparation for a move to the suburbs.

"The Man in 512" tracks Manny, the childcare worker for a Swedish family, as he observes the comings and goings of an affluent co-op building, all the while teaching the children Spanish through Selena's music catalog.

"Comrades" follows a queer man with radical politics who just ended a long-term relationship and is now on the hunt for a life partner. With little tolerance for political moderates, his series of speed dates devolve into awkward confrontations that leave him wondering if his approach is the correct one.

A collection of humorous, sexy, and highly neurotic tales about parenting, long-term relationships, systemic and interpersonal racism, and class conflict from the author of The Town of Babylon , The People Who Report More Stress deftly and poignantly expresses the frustration of knowing the problems and solutions to our society's inequities but being unable to do anything about them.

La Comunidad Reads with Lupita Aquino is generously supported by the DC Public Library Foundation.

Upcoming events