Praise for YOUR HEART IS A MUSCLE THE SIZE OF A FIST by Sunil Yapa
“A symphony of a novel. Sunil Yapa inhabits the skins of characters vastly different to himself: a riot cop in Seattle, a punk activist, a disillusioned world traveler and a high-level diplomat, among others. Through it all Yapa showcases a raw and rare talent. This is a protest novel which finds, at its core, a deep and abiding regard for the music of what happens. In the contemporary tradition of Aleksandar Hemon and Phillip Meyer, with echoes of Michael Ondaatje and Arundhati Roy, Yapa strides forward with a literary molotov cocktail to light up the dark.”—Colum McCann, author of the National Book Award winner Let the Great World Spin
“Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist is visceral, horrifying, and often heroic. But above all, this book is a full-throated chorus of voices on all sides—protestors, cops, delegates, politicians, and ramblers—as democracy runs headlong into the machinery of global power. Sunil Yapa has achieved something special, a story that is as tragic as it is relevant, as unflinching as it is humane.”–Smith Henderson, author of Fourth of July Creek
“There is nothing to say about Sunil Yapa’s debut novel that its wonderful title doesn’t already promise—its heart beats and bleeds on every page, in prose so raw it feels built of muscle and tissue and sinew and sweat. This book is delightfully, forcefully alive, and I feel more alive for having read it.”—Eleanor Henderson, author of Ten Thousand Saints
“Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist is a stunningly orchestrated, symphonic work of narrative power. This novel marshals all the vital forces of our existence—from the domestic to the political—and offers them to the reader with equal doses of compassion and beauty.” –Dinaw Mengestu, author of All Our Names
“An open-armed love letter to humanity, this glorious novel loops around a burning center encompassing the warmth of parents and the coolness of patriarchy. YHIAMTSOAF will compel you to look and then to witness. ‘We are mad with hope’ the narrator says early on, and by the end the reader is too.”—Tiphanie Yanique, author of Land of Love and Drowning
“A vital, powerful read, Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist is an absorbing, multi-faceted, acutely hopeful novel.”—Patrick deWitt, author of Undermajordomo Minor and The Sisters Brothers
“A great wrenching beautiful book.” —Laline Paull, author of The Bees
“Sunil Yapa’s debut novel is possibly the most gorgeous book I’ve read in my entire life… Yapa’s pattern of meandering, artful, full-bodied imagery, punctuated by zingy one-liners makes for a seriously addictive read… It’s painful. It’s gorgeous. I can’t say this enough: read it.”—E. CE Miller, Bustle
PRAISE FROM BOOKSELLERS
YOUR HEART IS A MUSCLE THE SIZE OF A FIST is one of the reasons it is such a delight to be a contemporary reader and bookseller. Sunil Yapa ascends with the publication of YHIAMTSOAF to the highest firmament of emerging writers. A brilliant choice to launch “lee boudreaux books”.—Paul Yamazaki, City Lights Booksellers (San Francisco, CA)
“Sunil Yapa’s debut novel YOUR HEART IS A MUSCLE THE SIZE OF A FIST is the best novel I’ve read in a long time. Can’t wait to share this book with readers (and our Elliott Bay author event series audiences). A smart, gorgeous novel filled with the heartbreaking complexity of our relationships with each other (person to person, citizen to nation, nation to world). Stunning.”—Karen Maeda Allman, Elliott Bay Book Company (Seattle, WA)
“In short chapters that chronicle one day of WTO protests in Seattle, Yapa immerses us in chaos and moments of transcendence. Empathy and insight suffuse each character’s story – protesters, police and delegates all have their moments – and I closed the book with the feeling that, if we can truly open our hearts to understanding and forgiveness, there is hope for all of us.”—Anmiryam Budner, Main Point Books (Bryn Mawr, PA)
It’s the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, 1999. Protests are planned against the global trade deals. The police are getting ready to protect the delegates who need to get to their meetings from the hotel, but the protestors are going to do anything they can to prevent that from happening so they can shut the meeting down. The story is told through three protestors – a wizened pro, a young firebrand, and a kid on a global journey to find himself. On the other side are the cops – a loner with a short fuse, an empathetic officer who lived through the Rodney King riots, and a chief who is caught between his community policing ideals and his convictions to protect the delegates and the city from chaos. There’s also one diplomat, a Sri Lankan who gets caught in the fray. And did I mention that the chief and the kid are estranged father and stepson? Sunil Yapa gracefully captures the struggle between conviction and order, and how grand plans can easily go awry. Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist could easily run didactic, but the author offers a few twists to keep you surprised and enough heart and nuance to create a powerfully rewarding story.—Daniel Goldin, Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
“To say that YOUR HEART IS A MUSCLE THE SIZE OF A FIST by Sunil Yapa packs a punch would be an understatement. Sunil Yapa draws us into the lives of a few very different characters on one dramatic day in 1999. As the novel’s events unfold, all of Yapa’s characters are caught up in the same chaotic violence. As each character’s internal chaos surfaces under tremendous external pressure, Yapa reveals the humanity that is common to all, even in the most inhuman moments.”—Mary Wolf, Collected Works Bookstore & Coffee House (Sante Fe, NM)
“I just finished YOUR HEART IS A MUSCLE THE SIZE OF A FIST, and […] I think the novel will connect with readers with its deep empathy, the urgency of [the] prose, and Yapa’s cinematic storytelling technique. […] This is a story Yapa really needed to tell, an endeavor that engaged his whole heart. You can feel it even at the sentence level, where he’ll omit linking verbs, propelling us right into the action, or in the way he uses repetition as a structuring device — some chapters read like poetry. I also feel that the novel couldn’t be arriving at a better time, when police violence, global trade, and the role of protest are very much at the forefront of the conversation.”—Travis Smith, Flyleaf Books (Chapel Hill, NC)
“When Victor, a young man adrift after his mother’s death, decides to head into Seattle to sell weed, he is unprepared for the scene of protesters. Trying to fill a void, he is quickly swept up in the moment after meeting John Henry, a charismatic former preacher, and King, a woman who torn between violence and nonviolence. A stunning debut novel set in 1999 amid the WTO protests in Seattle that explores humanity and the degrees of compassion humans can choose to act upon or ignore. Will highly recommend this novel!”—Teresa Steele, Old Firehouse/Book Shop of Fort Collins (Fort Collins, CO)
“I tore through this book. Having grown up in Seattle, I knew exactly where the riots took place which gave me a personal entrance into the novel. Not being there during the 1999 riots but living vicariously through them from the east coast, this novel gave me an insight into the players, rioters, delegates and police, I never had before. And although a work of fiction that is more about love and forgiveness than the riots themselves, the acts of violence on peacekeepers feels real. Amid this violence and police brutality comes a story of compassion, forgiveness and love that will strike every reader’s heart. The last paragraph is beautifully written and says it all. I loved this, read it in one day from cover to cover, and am sending it on today to my “socialist” son who lives in Seattle.”—Annie Philbrick, Bank Square Books (Mystic, CT)
“I really liked this one! It has all the perspectives you’d want in a book about one of the largest protests ever held. I’ll be recommending this one to young punks.”—Louise Barros, Bookshop Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)
“While downtown Seattle in 1999 is the setting, the voices and themes of this painful and achingly beautiful debut novel are universal. Sunil Yapa’s seven characters become more deeply enmeshed in the WTO riots with each page, coming to the initially peaceful demonstrations with seven different motivations: the police chief, his estranged and homeless teenage son, the committed activists, the distinguished delegate, the police. He tells their stories in individual chapters, as the day disintegrates from demonstrations to riots. Love, family, idealism, rage, brutality, injustice, and possibility: Yapa imbues his story with all of these feelings, with a compassion that evokes understanding for each character caught up in the terror of the day.”—Cheryl McKeon, Book Passage (San Francisco, CA)
“YOUR HEART IS A MUSCLE THE SIZE OF A FIST takes place over the course of one day in 1999 during the WTO protests in Seattle. The story is told from the perspective of several characters with very different backgrounds and motivations. In this wonderful debut, Sunil Yapa manages to create tension and empathy, urgency and compassion It is a book that feels alive and visceral, much like the heart, muscle and fist in its title.”—Shawn Donley, Powell’s Books (Portland, OR)
“A literary page turner.”—Jim McFarlane, Fiction Addiction (Greenville, SC)
“[…] The writing is spectacular and characters intriguing and as I lived in Seattle during the WTO, I am fascinated to read this work of fiction that captures the experience with such genuine quality and thought. I can’t wait to see where this story goes […]. I am so impressed that this is a debut book by such a young author and greatly enjoyed meeting him in person and gaining a deeper understanding and background as to how this book came to be. He is clearly a writer with so many more stories to tell and a family narrative with an endless well to draw from.”—Jesica Sweedler DeHart, BookPeople of Moscow (Moscow, ID)
“This roaring debut charges at you swinging, landing emotional sucker punch after emotional sucker punch. The 1999 WTO Riots spring to hypnotizing life in this book – a loud, bellowing ghost from the past, drawing deeply personal stories together in a stunning array of color, sound, and movement. Beneath its courageous layers, the core of Yapa’s book is humanity at its most vulnerable and passionate, a tenderness that only a master of the written word can perfect.”—Belinda Roddie, Copperfield’s (San Rafael, CA)
“Yapa’s debut novel is a raw orchestra of voices needing to be heard. Bringing to life the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, all humanity feels present, vibrant and at a loss, from the organizers and protesters, the police and their chief, the delegates and politicians, and the young unintended participant who is searching for meaning, purpose and hope amid the brutality. From the personal to the political, within a single fraught day, the whole world is blown wide open, beautifully, chaotically, and Yapa has captured it with fierceness and heart.”—Melinda Powers, Bookshop Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)
“Great story, excellent writing, marvelous pacing. I’m so excited about Lee Boudreaux’s editorial debut under her own imprint — it’s setting an impossibly high standard, but I know she’ll live up to it.”—Emily Crowe, Odyssey Bookshop (South Hadley, MA)
