Synopses & Reviews
"Addictive and headlong" (Lauren Groff), A Tiny Upward Shove is inspired by Melissa Chadburn's Filipino heritage and its folklore, as it traces the too-short life of a young, cast-off woman transformed by death into an agent of justice — or mercy.
My grandmother, sitting at her doily-covered table, marmalade on her cheek, explained that the aswang is all the evil bad things that a town or a society would want to deny — eventually it has to come out, has to be personified into something or the truth will reveal itself.
Marina Salles's life does not end the day she wakes up dead.
Instead, in the course of a moment, she is transformed into the stuff of myth, the stuff of her grandmother's old Filipino stories--an aswang. She spent her life on the margins, knowing very little about her own life, let alone the lives of others; she was shot like a pinball through a childhood of loss, a veteran of Child Protective Services and a survivor, but always reacting, watching from a distance. Death brings her into the hearts and minds of those she has known — even her killer — as she is able to access their memories and to see anew the meaning of her own. In the course of these pages she traces back through her life, finally able to see what led these lost souls to this crushingly inevitable conclusion.
In A Tiny Upward Shove, the debut novelist Melissa Chadburn charts the heartbreaking journeys of two of society's cast-offs as they find their way to each other and their roles as criminal and victim. What does it mean to be on the brink? When are those moments that change not only our lives but our very selves? And how, in this impossible world, can we rouse ourselves toward mercy?
Review
"Every line carries music, emotional weight, philosophical insight, and punk rock glory."
Amber Dermont, author of Damage Control
Review
"A beautiful and brave novel about powerlessness, longing, and that universal, unavoidable desire to be loved. Let this book happen to you."
Edan Lepucki, author of If You're Not Yet Like Me
Review
"A novel that grabs your attention and won't let it go — fueled by a wild, jagged energy and an exuberant mixing of cultures and a narrator whose frank, poignant voice will keep echoing in your head."
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, author of Likes
Review
"In its verve, vibrancy, and sheer reckless energy, Chadburn's writing recalls a number of wonders: Ondaatje's Running in the Family, say, or Kincaid's At the Bottom of the River. Chadburn's vision, however, her intelligence and empathy, are entirely her own."
Matthew Specktor, author of American Dream Machine
About the Author
Melissa Chadburn's writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review Daily, The Best American Food Writing, and many other publications. Her extensive reporting on the child welfare system appears in the Netflix docuseries The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez. Melissa is a worker lover and through her own labor and literary citizenship strives to upend economic violence. Her mother taught her how to sharpen a pencil with a knife and she's basically been doing that ever since. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Southern California and lives in greater Los Angeles.