Resisting the Future in Fernando A. Flores’ Novel, Brother Brontë!

Cover Fernando A. Flores' Brother Brontë

In the 2023-2024 school year, nearly 10,000 instances of book banning were reported in the U.S., with Texas alone accounting for 538 banned titles, according to PEN America. This climate of censorship serves as a sharp backdrop for Fernando Flores’s Brother Brontë, a novel that delves into the power of literature and the transformative role of storytelling in times of oppression.

Set in 2038, in a post-America world, Brother Brontë follows Neftali, a young woman navigating life in the dystopian city of Three Rivers, Texas. In this bleak future, Mayor Pablo Henry Crick has instituted widespread book bans, and worker-mothers are forced to provide for their families through the Big Tex Fish Cannery, the only place where books are allowed. However, the women working in the factory are forbidden from leaving unless their children no longer depend on them. Neftali’s best friend and former bandmate, Proserpina, produces fake ration cards, one of the few ways to access food in the city.

Through the lens of Neftali’s journey, Flores explores themes of resistance, resilience, and community. The women in this world rebel in myriad ways—Neftali holds onto her books while hunting for others to share with her friends. One of Neftali’s literary idols is Jazzmin Monelle Rivas, a writer whose personal connection to Three Rivers resonates deeply with her.

The novel is divided into three books, told from a third-person omniscient perspective. Neftali’s home is on the brink of destruction, and we are introduced to other residents of Three Rivers as she seeks a new place to live. Among them is Alexei, Neftali’s former bassist, who helps a local professor make Teddys, a new currency named after Theodore Roosevelt. Alexei and a group of boys gather bottle caps in hopes that the coinage will eventually take off. Resources are scarce in this post-collapse city: rolling blackouts, rationed water, and the disappearance of the internet all signal a broken society.

Flores excels at crafting multidimensional characters who feel fully realized. Neftali stands out as a determined protagonist who never hesitates to advocate for herself and those around her. Proserpina, though sharp and irreverent, shows a deep care for her community, keeping an eye on the children she teases mercilessly. These characterizations give the novel a genuine warmth, one that makes readers root for these individuals and their fight for survival.

Flores’s emphasis on community is one of the novel’s strongest features. Despite their harsh circumstances, the people of Three Rivers find ways to resist, support one another, and maintain hope. The dystopian future presented by Flores might feel eerily familiar, as he critiques capitalism, police brutality, anti-intellectualism, and censorship. In this world where everything seems scarce, relationships become the ultimate form of resistance.

Another notable aspect of the novel is Flores’s attention to South Texas, the real-life setting of Three Rivers. In 2038, the city suffers the consequences of a collapsed technological sector and privatization, much like the challenges facing communities today as tech companies push out working-class people and people of color. The novel’s setting echoes the ongoing changes in South Texas, where tech companies such as Tesla, Oracle, and Google have exacerbated displacement and inequality. Flores also nods to the expansion of SpaceX headquarters in Starbase, a project that has reshaped the region.

While Flores’s character development and world-building are impressive, the novel’s prose occasionally distracts from the narrative. At times, the imagery feels forced, with descriptions like “bird sounds like bullfrogs” or “desks coagulate on street corners.” Some scenes are weighed down by excessive adjectives, such as “slimy rain and stray beams of light attempting to brew rainbows from sludge puddles under an uncooperative dome of volcanic ash.”

Despite these occasional missteps, Brother Brontë is a compelling and worthwhile read, particularly for its portrayal of Latina characters and communities. Flores constructs a Latinofuturist framework that imagines a future where Latinos are central to society, even as they struggle against exploitation and marginalization. As scholars Frederick Aldama and Christopher González note in Latinx Key Concepts, the Latinxfuturist vision underscores how essential Latinos are to the United States, even as they face systemic threats and inequalities.

In Brother Brontë, Flores delivers a captivating speculative novel that challenges the status quo while offering a powerful feminist perspective on revolution. Neftali and the residents of Three Rivers show that, even when everything else seems to be falling apart, human connection and community can still light the way forward.

Fernando A. Flores