Yxta Maya Murray Selected Works

We Make Each Other Beautiful focuses on women of color, queer artists of color, and artist collectives who engage in direct political action as a part of their art practice. Defined by public protest, rule-breaking, rebellion, and resistance to governmental and institutional abuse, direct-action "artivism" draws on the aims, radical spirit, and tactics of the civil rights and feminist movements and on the struggles for disability rights, queer rights, and immigrant rights to seek legal and social change. Yxta Maya Murray profiles the work and lives of four contemporary artivists—Carrie Mae Weems, Young Joon Kwak, Tanya Aguiñiga, and Imani Jacqueline Brown—and the artivist collective Drawn Together, combining new oral histories with sharp analyses of how their diverse and expansive artistic practices bear important aesthetic and politicolegal meanings that address a wide range of injustices.

Laura de León is a radar astronomer who studies Potentially Hazardous Objects (PHOs) such as threatening asteroids and comets at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. In Los Angeles in 2020, several crises are coalescing. The first strain of SARS-CoV-2 triggers the lockdowns, the city roils with protests of Derek Chauvin's murder of George Floyd and the police killing of Breonna Taylor, while the Bobcat Fire sweeps across the San Fernando Valley. In the midst of these emergencies, Laura is struggling to keep her family alive. A story about family, love, risk, and science, A History of Hazardous Objects contemplates how experiencing trauma and pain may help us secure a safer and more just world.

God Went Like That follows federal agent Reyna Rodriguez as he reports on a real-life nuclear reactor meltdown and accidents that occurred in 1959, 1964, and 1968 at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. An infamous research and development complex in California’s Simi Valley, the lab was eventually dismantled by the US government—but not before it created a toxic legacy of contamination and numerous cancer clusters. With imagination and artistry, Murray brings to life an actual 2011 Department of Energy dossier that detailed the catastrophes and the ensuing public health fallout and highlights the high costs of governmental malfeasance and environmental racism.

These gripping stories find inspiration in news headlines about recent events. Ordinary people negotiate their tentative paths through wildfire, mass shootings, bureaucratic incompetence, and heedless government policies with vicious impacts on the innocent and helpless. As a whole, the collection forms a troubling yet irresistible mirror of our time.

In her funny, idiosyncratic, and propulsive novel, written as a series of  Instagram essays, Snapchat freakouts, rejected Yelp reviews, Facebook screeds, and SmugMug streams-of-consciousness merging volcanic confession with eagle-eyed art criticism, Yxta Maya Murray shows us the painful but joyous development of a mid-career artist whose world implodes just as she has a breakthrough.

Locas tells a violent and poignant story set in the heart of the rough L.A. neighborhood Echo Park. Lucia and Cecilia are the girlfriend and sister of the rising young loco whose gun trade is about to explode into the big business of drugs. When their world starts to split apart under the vicious pressure of gang warfare, Lucia seizes her chance: she builds her own private cadre of Fire Girls and rises to become a gangster in her own right. Cecilia, devastated by a miscarried pregnancy and bittersweet love for another woman, leaves the gang for the Catholic church. Yxta Maya Murray has created a richly textured story from the tragedies of Lucia and Cecilia's loves, rages, and betrayals, never once avoiding the larger tragedy of their entrapment in a feudal and dangerous world. Equally beautiful and wrenching in its authenticity, Locas is a rhythmic, breathless and terrifyingly raw plunge into East L.A. gang life.

Sara Rosario Gonzáles is a restorer of rare books and manuscripts at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. When Sara restores a sixteenth-century manuscript about an Aztec princess enslaved by Cortés and sent to Europe to entertain the pope and Emperor Charles V, she doesn't realize the power of the tale she's about to immerse herself into. The princess, we find, is determined to avenge the slaughter of her people, and Sara is determined to prove that the book, which caused scandal when first published, was written by the Aztec princess herself, and not the European monk reputed to have penned it. Entwined within Sara's fascination of the manuscript is Sara's own life: the frustration over her inability to commit to Karl, the man who has loved her since high school; the haunting wisdom of her departed mother; and the stability of a father who sees the world in a way Sara does not, both pragmatically and unyieldingly. The Conquest is a beautifully written novel that offers both hope that true love does exist and that history, in all its complexity, is what drives us all toward tomorrow.

One look at the centuries-old document she receives from a mysterious stranger is all it takes to plunge Lola Sanchez—a brilliant bibliophile and owner of the Red Lion bookshop—into the adventure of an already adventurous lifetime. The ancient writings tell of a stolen fortune in Montezuma's gold—and of the thief's transformation from conquistatore to alchemist . . . to werewolf. Riches beyond imagining possibly await the stalwart globe-trotter who can solve the intricate riddles hidden in the artifact's crumbling pages. But a deadly curse is buried there as well. On a dangerous quest through the dark shadows of history, Lola and her dashing companion, Eric, will have to unravel the twisted strands of her own family's fantastical past—and stay a step ahead of the villainous treasure hunters who would eagerly kill for the secrets she possesses and the Aztec gold she seeks.

There is a legend of the New World that has endured for centuries: the strange, tragic tale of a King, a Witch . . . and a blue gem of intoxicating beauty said to grant extraordinary power to whoever possesses it. Archaeologist Juana Sanchez, convinced that she's discovered the key to unlocking the mystery of the fabled Queen Jade, ventures into the Central American jungle alone—just ahead of the relentless pounding fury of Hurricane Mitch. When the terrible storm is over, Juana is gone, and an ancient, long-buried jade mine has been uncovered in the mountains of Guatemala, giving new hope to all obsessed seekers of the legendary stone. But it is a different obsession that plunges Juana's daughter—scholar and bookseller Lola Sanchez—into the remarkable adventure of a lifetime. For only by following the Queen Jade's perilous, cursed trail can Lola hope to find her vanished mother . . . if it isn't already too late.

What It Takes to Get to Vegas has been described by The Arizona Republic as "a juicy tale of ambition, passion and grit that is as much fun to read as a good trash talk session with your best friend."

Growing up among the championship hopefuls and alleyway gladiators of East L.A., Rita Zapata sees in boxing a ticket to something better. At eighteen, she's earned the title "Queen of the Streetfighters." Then she meets Billy, an enigmatic, intense fighter from Mexico, who begins systematically clawing his way to the top. Their passionate connection gives Rita two things she's never had: real love, and respect in the neighborhood. From the alleys off Cesar Chavez Avenue to the carpeted suites of Caesars Palace, Rita learns exactly what it takes to get to Vegas, as Billy turns out to be the best thing that has ever happened to her—and the worst. In exuberant prose sparkling with wicked wit, Yxta Maya Murray has given us a sass-talking, big-hearted heroine with a story we will not soon forget.