A Purpose to Our Savagery

De: Tomas Baiza

Narrado por: Tomas Baiza

A mother struggles with what it means to be Chicana, as she searches for her son at a powwow. A delivery driver has a fateful encounter with a voracious customer at the end of the world. A grieving father learns the true identity of the hummingbird that hovers outside his kitchen window. A Mexican cowboy—who might or might not be the Messiah—orders a pepperoni pizza on a Friday night. And a troubled young man develops an unexpected bond with his neighbor's racist yard ornament.

In his debut collection, Tomas Hulick Baiza explores the poetic and mythic spaces between light and dark, where Aztec gods and more contemporary obsessions fight for dominance. With vivid characters, A Purpose to Our Savagery takes listeners on a journey through tragi-comic, hallucinatory, and even nightmarish landscapes, where he exalts the resilience of outsiders in a world inclined to leave them behind. In the end, Baiza's stories highlight the extraordinary and mundane challenges that we overcome to make it to the next day.

©2023 Tomás Hulick Baiza (P)2023 Tomás Hulick Baiza

Of course I cried

I've had the privilege of going to readings and being able to listen to Baiza live. I don't usually argue for the merit of how a story is read; I believe every story should stand by its own right on the page. However, I think being able to hear Baiza himself read these stories deeply enriches them. There is something personal and raw about how every word is read. The way time is used as a device is clever and unique in each story. It maintains interest and momentum no matter when or where we go with these characters.
Baiza has so many beautiful and important things to say, I could not recommend this collection enough.
Above all else, this collection teaches you to become a little more human and little more loving.