July - August 2025 Selection
Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine Capó Crucet
Jennine Capó Crucet’s Say Hello to My Little Friend is a genre-defying, darkly humorous, and poignant novel about identity, loss, and the struggle to belong. At its center is Ismael “Izzy” Reyes, a 20-year-old Cuban immigrant in Miami who makes a living impersonating the rapper Pitbull, until he’s served a cease-and-desist and is forced to reinvent himself. Inspired by Al Pacino’s Tony Montana from Scarface, Izzy dreams of power, wealth, and status, all while unraveling the mystery of his mother’s death and his own fractured past.
Izzy’s quest leads him to the Miami Seaquarium, where he forms an eerie, psychic connection with Lolita, a killer whale held in captivity. Both are trapped: Izzy by questions about his past and cultural identity and Lolita by her tank. Their parallel narratives—each haunted by separation from their mothers—highlight themes of immigration, diaspora, and emotional confinement.
Crucet’s storytelling blends satirical absurdity with genuine emotional depth. Through Miami’s vibrant chaos, Spanglish prose, and metafictional asides, she explores what it means to constantly reinvent oneself in the face of trauma and displacement. With both heart and bite, this novel paints a surreal, yet deeply human portrait of two unlikely souls trying to find their way home.
Jennine Capó Crucet is a novelist, essayist, and screenwriter. A recipient of the 2025 Joyce Carol Oates Prize and a PEN/O. Henry Prize, she’s the author of four books: the novel Say Hello To My Little Friend, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction; the novel Make Your Home Among Strangers, which won the International Latino Book Award; the multiple award-winning story collection How to Leave Hialeah; and the essay collection My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education, long-listed for the PEN/Open Book Award. A former Contributing Opinion Writer for The New York Times, her writing has appeared on PBS NewsHour, National Public Radio, and in publications such as The Atlantic, Condé Nast Traveler, and others. Born and raised in Miami to Cuban parents, she lives in North Carolina with her family.
On Saturday, August 2, Jennine will be in conversation with Tara Dorabji.
Tara Dorabji is the author of Call Her Freedom, winner of the Books Like Us Grand Prize. A child of Parsi-Indian and German-Italian migrants, she is an award-winning filmmaker whose documentary series on human rights defenders in Kashmir screened at festivals across Asia and the U.S. Her writing appears in Al Jazeera, Chicago Quarterly, Huizache, and the anthologies Good Girls Marry Doctors and All the Women in My Family Sing. Tara speaks internationally on systems change, cultural strategy, radical resource redistribution and storytelling. She lives in Northern California with her family and rabbit.
This program is sponsored by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.
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Related Events
Author Talk: Jennine Capó Crucet in Conversation with Tara Dorabji — Saturday, August 2, 2 p.m., Koret Auditorium
Book Club: Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine Capó Crucet — Tuesday, August 26, 7 p.m., Virtual Library
“This is an experience. Crucet’s book . . . is so rich with dark humor that its sentences can both lift and break the reader’s heart . . . a superb, incredibly entertaining and purposefully off-kilter novel about reinvention, memory, and the good and bad baggage that comes along with life for both human and whalekind, surpassing even Tony Montana’s wildest dreams.” —The San Francisco Chronicle
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