![New and Notable Fiction](http://cdn.libro.fm/assets/website-images/playlist-default.jpg)
![The Sons of El Rey by Alex Espinoza](http://covers.libro.fm/9781797174594_1120.jpg)
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account![Buy one get one free](http://cdn.libro.fm/assets/website-images/bogo-balloons.png)
This month only!
Become a member and shop our members-only, 10th anniversary buy-one-get-one sale in support of local bookstores.
Get startedThe Sons of El Rey
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn more“This is a knockout.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
One of the Today Show’s Most Anticipated Books of 2024 • One of Time’s New Books to Read this Summer • One of the Los Angeles Times’s Books You Need to Read this Summer
“A masterful exploration of a family reckoning with its most sacred secrets. Mesmerizing and unflinching, Espinoza’s luchadores will wrestle their way deep into your heart.” —Patricia Engel, New York Times bestselling author
A timeless, epic novel about a family of luchadores contending with forbidden love and secrets in Mexico City, Los Angeles, and beyond.
Ernesto Vega has lived many lives, from pig farmer to construction worker to famed luchador El Rey Coyote, yet he has always worn a mask. He was discovered by a local lucha libre trainer at a time when luchadores—Mexican wrestlers donning flamboyant masks and capes—were treated as daredevils or rock stars. Ernesto found fame, rapidly gaining name recognition across Mexico, but at great expense, nearly costing him his marriage to his wife Elena.
Years later, in East Los Angeles, his son, Freddy Vega, is struggling to save his father’s gym while Freddy’s own son, Julian, is searching for professional and romantic fulfillment as a Mexican American gay man refusing to be defined by stereotypes.
With alternating perspectives, Ernesto and Elena take you from the ranches of Michoacán to the makeshift colonias of Mexico City. Freddy describes life in the suburban streets of 1980s Los Angeles and the community their family built, as Julian descends deep into our present-day culture of hook-up apps, lucha burlesque shows, and the dark underbelly of West Hollywood. The Sons of El Rey is an intimate portrait of a family wading against time and legacy, yet always choosing the fight.
Alex Espinoza was born in Tijuana, Mexico, and raised in suburban Los Angeles. He is the author of the novels Still Water Saints and The Five Acts of Diego León, as well as a book of nonfiction, Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime. Alex teaches at UC-Riverside where he serves as the Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair of Creative Writing.