The Book & The Bestiary

A note about publishing my first book

A couple of weeks ago the UPS guy showed up with a mystery box. Gyan and I have been in the middle of repairs and small updates to make the new place a bit cozier. Curtains, non-oxidized sink pipes, mouse proofing, you know, the usual stuff. Having hoisted the box into the apartment, I cut through the tape and pulled on the carboard flaps, expecting some steel wool and duct tape. Instead, I found this:

From Griffin to Axolotl: Reimagining the Bestiary in Contemporary Hispanic Literature is my first book, published with McGill Queen’s University Press

I had some vague notion that the book would be arriving in December, but it surprised me nonetheless. Seeing roughly a decade of work wrapped up in a bright yellow package was odd. I realized I’d spent so long working on the manuscript that I never really thought to daydream about holding the finished product in my hands.

In an uncharacteristic moment, I leaned on my kitchen counter for a bit and stared at the book, trying to identify the loudest emotion. Some excitement? Definitely. Pride? Maybe a little, but not in the biblical sense. Something else reared as I flipped through the pages to make sure all my chapters had made it unscathed. Relief: I was relieved.

I started this project when I was 23, during the first year of my PhD. The sheer excitement of having come across the bestiary, a medieval genre of literature that featured animals, and the support of my supervisor carried me through the next few years. I had a library carrel with a sliver of window looking at a brick wall that, when I was sufficiently caffeinated, seemed the most wonderful place on earth. On any given morning, I could be found on the 13^th floor, nestled within the PQ stacks, typing and backspacing like my life depended on it.

Since my work hinged on proving that the bestiary, traditionally a medieval genre, was still alive and well in contemporary Hispanic literature, I also travelled. I was helped by bookshop keepers in Buenos Aires and Mexico City. I irritated a clerk at the National Library in Madrid and nearly missed a train conspiring with a librarian in Barcelona. I brought back whatever books were within airline weight regulations and wrote about what I found. The enthusiasm led me to write and defend my thesis in a few years, formally dressed only from the waist up, the first summer of the pandemic.

As I completed my post-doc and applied to become a tenure-stream professor, I also worked to publish the thesis as a book. I edited and revised, and submitted the manuscript to a handful of publishers, racking up rejection after rejection. Finally, the editor in charge of acquisitions for Hispanic studies at McGill Queen’s University Press (let’s call him Clifford) gave me the green light. We met at Propeller Coffee in the Junction and he outlined the plan for further revisions and peer-review.¹

A lot of things happened between that decaf latte with Clifford and the book sitting on the shelf today, the sort of things that take some time to label as “good” or “bad.” I got a tenure track job and stepped down after realizing it wasn’t for me. My long-term partner and I parted ways; I met Gyan. My grandmother passed away and I took up tango dancing. In one of my more hopeless moments, unable to type through the rubble of what I thought my life would be, I told Clifford I would no longer be pursuing the book. He, being wiser than I, said he would archive it, just in case. I stopped writing altogether and focused instead of figuring out a new way to pay the bills.

It was a strange time, where up was down and much of what had previously anchored me seemed to have very rudely evaporated. I came up with a thousand and one ways of occupying my mornings, to fill the void left behind by writing. I cleaned, I cooked, I took Natto for walks that were entirely too long, I feng-shuied my apartment, I talked long hours on the phone. Eventually, and to everyone’s relief, I gave up on trying to distract myself and sat down to write. A little at first, nothing serious. I wasn’t going to pursue anything, just document the time my dog shamed me for being too much of a home body. And do justice to the medieval beavers that offer up their scrota in the name of piety. And sure, write a sketch of my adventures in cooking meat, why not. Writing found its way back into my mornings and I slowly found my way back to myself.

The rest is as you’d imagine. I e-mailed Clifford who promptly answered and let me know that yes, he still had my file and no, I wasn’t the flakiest writer he’d ever worked with. That was two years ago, and some editing, revising, chasing down copyright, and indexing later, the book is here. It’s a relief to have finished it, no doubt. But it’s even more so to know that while my writing might have started with my academic career, it’s with me well after it.

Prone to Hyperbole by Ailén Cruz