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Storytelling and Public Health: Q & A with Alejandro Varela | Bloom

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Public health and fiction share a desire to elicit reactions… both examine experiences in order to better understand human motivations and actions, as well as the systems that dictate our dec…

by Alice Stephens In Alejandro Varela’s debut novel, The Town of Babylon , Andrés, a public health professor, returns to his suburban hometown to look after his ailing father. Making a last-minute decision to go to his high school reunion, he becomes reacquainted with his first love, Jeremy. Though both men are in relationships, they begin an affair, forcing Andrés to confront his past as a closeted gay teen and one of the few people of color in his neighborhood. In encounters with important figures from his youth, Andrés considers the sacrifices his Colombian- and Salvadorian-immigrant parent

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