The Five Wounds

A stunning debut novel about a New Mexican family's extraordinary year of love and sacrifice—“A wholehearted, radiant, and darkly funny exploration of family, faith, and forgiveness” (Buzzfeed).

Winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

Winner of the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award

Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award

“Masterly . . . Quade has created a world bristling with compassion and humanity. The characters and the challenges they face are wholly realized and moving; their journeys span a wide spectrum of emotion and it is impossible not to root for [them].” —Alexandra Chang, New York Times Book Review

It's Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, when his fifteen-year-old Angel shows up pregnant on her father Amadeo’s doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption. Over the baby’s first year, five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo’s mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discover; Angle’s mother, Marissa, whom Angel isn’t speaking to; and disapproving Tio Tive, keeper of the family’s history.” “Sheathed in sensate layers of the Northern New Mexico landscape” (Meredith Maran, Los Angeles Times), The Five Wounds is “a propulsive, immersive story that reckons wisely with the real cost of redemption” (Holly Williams, Guardian).

One of NPR's Best Books of the Year • A Publishers Weekly and Library Journal Best Book of the Year in Fiction • A Kirkus Reviews Best Fictional Family of the Year • A Booklist Top Ten Book-Group Book of the Year and Top Twenty-First Century First Novels, So Far • A Goodreads Choice Awards Best Debut Novel Nominee