Encore! Encore!

by Elías Miguel Muñoz

Step into the world of Encore! Encore! as it unveils the captivating tapestry of Santo Domingo in the early 1980s—a place where tropical allure meets the struggles of a developing nation. In the heart of this evocative tale lies the Hotel Cristóbal, a clandestine stage for the “biz” of sex work. As the story unfolds like a play, characters on this compelling stage, both johns and hustlers, embody their roles. Meet Luis and Richard, two audacious young sex workers, and their patrons, Paul and Antonio. The novel paints an insightful account of their lives, as dreams and aspirations converge amid monetary negotiations. Will Luis’s fantasy of becoming a superstar singer-songwriter steer him away from tragedy? Beneath the theatrics, a timeless theme emerges—the profound power of friendship, which becomes the saving grace in the performances of life. Witness the enduring but strained bond between Paul and Antonio, and the unbreakable connection shared by Richard and Luis, an unspoken love that is their beacon of hope and strength. In Encore! Encore! , passion, camaraderie, and self-discovery intertwine to create a story that will linger in your mind long after the final act. This daring and beautifully crafted novel will leave you spellbound, pondering the intricacies of the human heart and the resilience of the human spirit. "Part novel, part drama, all poetry, Encore! Encore! hooks the reader and doesn’t let go. Readers will travel to a world rarely on center stage—the male sex tourism industry—and depart unable to see the Caribbean the same way ever again. Lyrical, intertextual, and haunting, this novel will have readers repeating, Encore! Encore! "
—Ylce Irizarry, Ph.D., author of Chicana/o and Latina/o The New Memory of Latinidad "Deftly pushing on the parameters of Latinx sexuality, Elías Miguel Muñoz weaves together a series of actors in the queer sex tourist industry of Santo Domingo. The characters’ sexual and dialogic exchanges ripple into spheres of family, history, and speculative imagination in this dynamic production."
—Kristy Ulibarri, Ph.D., author of Visible Borders , Invisible Living Death in Latinx Narratives "Muñoz weaves a complex and poignant network of relationships, all connected by a shared exploration of how different types of love shape our personal worlds. Through its ensembles and agile tunes, this book recalls the fluid fabric of a contemporary musical."
—Leo Cabranes-Grant, Ph.D., Award Winning Professor and Playwright, University of California, Santa Barbara

222 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2023

About the author

Born September 29, 1954, in Cuba, heemigrated to the United States with my parents and younger brother at the age of fifteen. I arrived in Los Angeles in 1969 to finish my high school education in Hawthorne, a suburb of L.A., later attending the University of California, Irvine, where I earned an MA in Spanish (1979) and a PhD in Latin American literature (1984).

Reviews

[Andrew Peters]

Veteran author, poet, and playwright Elías Miguel Muñoz makes his return to the author stage with the release of his first novel in a planned series focused on the lives of people in Hispanic Caribbean nations. That’s a world Muñoz knows first-hand and is passionate about, having grown up in Cuba and gone on to become a professor of Latin American literature. He chose as his first subject the Dominican Republic in the 1980s, explored through an interwoven story about the inhabitants of the Hotel Cristobal, a place where foreign men pay for sex with ‘macho’ native rent boys.

Read the rest of my review at Out in Print.