Beyond the Baths of Stars

A Novel

By: Schneider K. Rancy

A dazzling literary debut that reimagines The Odyssey and asks what power do we have to control our own fate when our destiny feels pre-determined and the systems of the world are broken? Eurick Ulysse is trapped: by poverty, by class, by his parents’ expectations. Disaffected by dead-end jobs, unaffordable community college classes, and the smallness of his world, he’s all but resolved to piss away his life with his friends by drinking on the beach in endless ennui. But the night he drags a delirious and half-drowned Ana Maria Cortez out of the waves, everything changes. Ana is wild, carefree, and at times . . . otherworldly. When she invites Eurick out for a night of bohemian debauchery roaming the Miami streets—a joyride of liquor store runs, casino tables, art shows, and boat thefts—he finds himself acting out against every rule that’s ever limited him. For just one night, he feels free. Will this new freedom show Eurick that there’s another kind of life for him? Or has it only given him a taste of a future that will always be denied?