I'm always interested in thinking about how people become complicit in the systems that

dehumanize them. Just as quickly as, you know, the people that are empowered now and

in power of the government have said like, diversity bad. And you see how quickly every single

university, every single major corporation, bent the knee.

It took very little.

With this book, like I certainly wanted to, like, expose that.

And in some ways, and not like a judgy way, because I think that makes for boring fiction.

So I'm more interested in being like, what is more fascinating than the person who actually

becomes complicit?

Welcome to the stats, a podcast about books and the people who read them.

I'm your host, Tracy Thomas, and today I am joined by Clavis Natera. She is an essayist,

critic, and novelist who you might know from her debut novel, Neruda on the park. And today

she is here to discuss her newest book, The Grand Paloma Resort. This literary suspense novel is set

in the Dominican Republic and revolves around two sisters who work at a high-end

luxury resort called the Grand Paloma. The book follows them as disaster strikes and they try to

figure out what they're going to do. I absolutely love this book and was thrilled to talk to

Clavis today about how she thought about writing in the

literary suspense genre, why it was important for her to include the history of the Dominican

Republic and Haiti, and what's so interesting to her about a workplace novel.

The Stacks Book Club pick for September is The Lillac People by Milo Todd.

We will be discussing the book on Wednesday, September 24th with Den Michelle Norris.

Reminder, everything we talk about on each episode of The Stacks can be found in the link in the show notes.

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