Ruben Reyes Jr.’s ambitious debut novel, “Archive of Unknown Universes,” juggles multiple storylines and it also juggles multiple realities.
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There’s a narrative set in 2018 about the way trauma echoes through generations, in this case for the children of refugees from the civil war in El Salvador. The book also jumps back to the rebels and lovers in the civil war … but also to an alternate timeline in which the rebels in the civil war were successful, transforming the country and the citizens who fought or fled. As readers, we spend big chunks of the book in that universe, seeing a new path for one character who most likely was tortured and killed by the government in the “real world” of the book.
The characters in that real world who catch glimpses of the alternate timeline do so through a machine known as The Defractor. But looking into the machine provides only small moments and often harms those who look, “the latest iteration of a long line of mortal mishaps.”
Reyes, whose parents are Salvadoran, was born in Fontana and grew up in Diamond Bar; he went to Harvard and then got an MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His first book was a collection of stories called “There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven” that also featured elements of speculative fiction.
Reyes, who spoke recently by video, wanted to write about the real and imagined Salvadoran civil war because it “reflects on Latin American politics at large,” although now he says the book is resonating differently because it also deals with increasing authoritarianism, which deals with the kinds of questions we’re asking ourselves now.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. You created the device called the Defractor for your book: Would you use it?
Even without the technology, I always ask myself, “What if?” The reason I even wrote about this device is because it’s such a compelling question.
I was attracted to the idea of alternate universes, because I think it allows you to make space for both the happiness and the sadness, and they actually play off each other – when you see a happy moment, there’s a tinge of sadness when you think, “But in the real world, they didn’t get this.” That’s also true when you read something tragic.
I think the fear is always that you’re happier in another world. And seeing that quote-unquote proven to you through a device would probably be a little destabilizing. So I want to think I’d be better than that, but I would still try it.
Q. There’s so much going on here. Do you think the book’s main focal point is: the love story with Anna, Luis and Domingo in the present; or the love story in the past with Rafael and Neto Amito; or the alternate history of a successful rebellion in El Salvador; or the idea of how regret and longing mix on a personal and political scale; or how the trauma of violence, war and rebellion shapes not only those who live through it but subsequent generations?
Hearing you talk about it is so funny, because I’m thinking, “This is kind of a complicated book that I’ve kind of put together.”
No. 1, it’s about the long-term intergenerational effects of war. That was the thing I kept thinking about. The emotional reality of the book is based on things that I’ve gone through – silence between the generations is a big theme. After someone goes through something so traumatic, it’s hard for them to talk about it.
The circumstances of my parents’ migration was so different from those of these characters. My father came here when he was young, then went back to El Salvador and then came back here, and my mother came after they’d married, but they also had the privilege of citizenship. But I had other family members who had less favorable experiences migrating.
Growing up, I didn’t even really know there’d been a civil war in El Salvador. Until I pushed them, my parents talked very little about their lives before I was born. In college, I was learning about the Salvadoran civil war and about archives and how you do historical research, and I did an oral history and that gave me the excuse to ask my parents about it. “Will you talk to me because I’m doing this assignment for school?” But I needed the excuse, because it’s not the kind of thing that I felt that I could just broach with them out of nowhere.
Q. Is that why the word “Archive” is in the title?
That word was really important to me because a lot of what I studied in college was about archives and what’s missing from them and who’s missing from them, which is a big theme in this book, too.
Q. You live in New York now, but how did growing up in the Los Angeles area shape you?
I grew up in the suburbs outside L.A., but my dad grew up in Los Angeles and worked for the L.A. school district for 30-plus years, so I got to know the city. It offered a cultural and artistic education that I’m only realizing in retrospect how important it was. When I was off from school, I’d hitch a ride in with my dad and spend the day hanging out in downtown L.A. It was the first time I spent substantial time in museums on my own, and I went to free concerts and all these offerings the city has. L.A. opened up my world. And I think that it’s really essential to who I am as a writer.