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The Myth of the Self-Made Man

By: Ruben Reyes
Narrated by: Inés del Castillo, Eric Yves Garcia, Christian Barillas
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Publisher's summary

From a stunning new Latino voice, Myth of the Self-Made Man is a wildly inventive story - part sci-fi, with echoes of Get Out - that plunges us into a brave new American landscape.

More than a hundred years into the future, as the US approaches its 400th anniversary, Tomas, a young graduate student, searches for the real identity of one of the cyborgs that maintained American homes. He has been haunted for years by an audio clip of a cyborg named Felipe and is intent on writing Felipe’s biography. In the clip, Felipe can only recite that he was made in America, but Tomas must find out: Where was the Self-made Man really from?

In the National Archives, Tomas uncovers a trove of articles, depositions, and interviews about many other cyborgs, boys from El Salvador and Guatemala kidnapped, detained, and reengineered at a monolithic New England company.

As we follow Tomas’ determined investigation into these lives, their voices echo through our own past, present, and future with unsettling clarity.

©2021 Ruben Reyes (P)2021 Audible Originals, LLC.

About the Creator

Ruben Reyes Jr. is an MFA candidate in fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is a graduate of Harvard College, where he studied history and literature and Latinx studies. His writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. He is at work on a novel and a collection of short stories.
Photo Credit: Santiago José Sánchez.

About the Performer

Christian Barillas is an actor with credits in theater, film, and television. His narration across multiple genres has garnered an Audie Award nomination, an AudioFile Earphones Award, and made "notable" by the American Library Association. On TV, Barillas is perhaps most recognizable as Ronaldo on Modern Family, where he appeared opposite Nathan Lane for seven seasons. Other television credits include The Handmaid’s Tale, The Kominsky Method, Grace & Frankie, NCIS: Los Angeles, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, and many others. Theater highlights include work at Yale Rep, Denver Center, Center Theatre Group, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, South Coast Repertory, and Huntington Theatre. In film, he most notably worked with Oscar-winning writer-director Martin McDonagh in *Seven Psychopaths.

About the Performer

Inés del Castillo is a bilingual actress, writer, and director. She has narrated more than 30 audiobooks, two of which are on YALSA’s 2021 Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults List: Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From and the multi-cast I Killed Zoe Spanos. She began her career as a member of the Spanish Repertory Theatre, performing Off-Broadway for five years, most notably in In the Time of the Butterflies. Since then, she has focused on TV, film, and voice-over, appearing on Blue Bloods, Law & Order: SVU, and FBI: Most Wanted. Her full-length play, Bear, Woman, is currently being developed, after having its first workshop at Quick Silver Theater’s Playwrights of Color Summit. When she’s not doing that, she’s probably hiking, reading sci-fi and fantasy books, or eating dark chocolate.

About the Performer

Eric Yves Garcia spins stories into a mic, whether alone in a booth or onstage with a piano. An actor and musician, Eric has voiced several mysteries, thrillers, YA, and romance, as well as non-fiction titles in history, self-help, memoir, and, uniquely, recipes. Eric's roles in multi-cast audio plays range from kids to classics, including Little Women starring Laura Dern, highlighted by Entertainment Weekly. As an award-winning singer/pianist, he has performed most nights of every week across NYC for more than a decade while also touring the US, UK, and Europe. His solo reviews have been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time Out New York, and Chicago Tribune. Of the two gigs, the narrator wardrobe is decidedly more breathable.
Photo Credit: Xanthe Elbrick

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