“They Hold Grudges” expands on the impact of scandals and keeping the peace
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On Thursday, October 15 at 7:30 p.m. ET, author Diana Rojas will join us for our next Hola Escritores charla. RSVP for the charla and submit your questions for the Q&A.
Families are the first community into which we are welcomed. Parents, grandparents, siblings and cousins are there first. Then come the neighbors and friends knit so deeply into our childhood, they might as well be blood too. Each one creates the foundational support that shapes our identity and sense of belonging. For Rob, the narrator, his faith in this unwavering bond is a fact of life in his large and seemingly harmonious family. After all, the “Golden Family Rule” is to keep the peace no matter the cost.
“No serious quarrels, no harboring of resentments,” Rob explains on page 6. “… Anger, grudges, were verboten. Our obedience to this rule was quasi-religious; we didn’t question it.”
Everything comes to a stop, however, when his manipulative cousin Pablito accuses Rob of molesting him as a child. In an instant, Rob’s reputation and place in the family come crumbling down. Through endless layers of chisme, meaning gossip, Diana Rojas’ “They Hold Grudges” explores the fragile line between familial loyalty and inaction and the damage one’s silence can cause.
For Rob’s family, chisme is a tradition in which everyone participates. It’s a bonding activity for adults and children alike, providing either entertainment or distress. Rob calls it the family sport. But once he is accused, he is forced to learn the impact that chisme can have.
Though Rob swears the accusation isn’t true, he has no way to prove it. The only evidence he has is his own memories from years ago, his stained reputation and Pablito’s habit to lie and exploit others for personal gain. However, none of it is enough to stop the rumor from spreading. Pablito never brings up the accusation again — nor does he ever bring it up to Rob directly — but it’s not necessary. This false rumor is weaponized by Pablito’s mother, the crazed Mara, who tells anyone she can about what happened to her son. Even if the family cannot pick sides as per the family rule, their silence and failure to defend Rob only help paint him as a perpetrator.
By using first-person perspective, Rojas gives us not only a more intimate understanding of Rob’s mind, but also the space to join him in the chisme. Listening to Rob explain how he used to be his uncle Pablo’s favorite, why his aunt Mara and entitled cousin Pablito are jealous of this obvious fact, why everyone keeps quiet about those two’s unsettling behavior out of respect and pity for Pablo, one begins to feel like a newly initiated member of the family. It becomes easy to take each tidbit of gossip as hard truths when everyone in the family has already adopted the same biases long ago.
Eventually, even Rob begins to doubt himself despite how firmly he once believed himself to be innocent. He begins to pick apart every memory and question if maybe he really did do something to Pablito. Paranoia turns him into a shell of his former self, and soon enough the rumor threatens to destroy every aspect of his life. It’s only once Rob’s at his most distressed that Pablito shows up offering a solution in return for what he really wanted from Rob all along.
Chisme isn’t the only thing that shapes Rob’s sense of truth. In this novel, and for many born outside of the U.S., family comes before the individual. We are only given one family, so we must keep them close no matter what.
Rob’s grandfather, the head patriarch who left Costa Rica after watching a fight turn his brothers into enemies, raised each generation of the family on this belief. He would tell everyone his family’s story over and over as a well-intentioned warning: never question another member of the family, never get involved in others’ fights and never hold a grudge.
Though it exhausts younger relatives like Rob, nobody contests this idea either. No matter how much he and his sisters might roll their eyes or scoff at each other over their parents’ and grandfather’s extreme ideas of peace, they still obey out of respect for their elders. Rojas’ portrayal of dynamics between generations highlights how conformity binds a family together.
Rojas also explores how in order to maintain this illusion of peace, one must sometimes suspend logic to accept something typically deemed unbelievable. The novel uses the gift of dreams to explore this dynamic. Along with his mother and one of his sisters, Rob can sometimes see glimpses of the future through his dreams. There are rules to these dreams. For dreams to be considered true to them, the person must have the exact same dream three times in a row, and the image must be sharper each time.
Compared to his mother and sister, Rob rarely has these dreams of premonition, but he prides himself on the gift anyway. Not everyone believes, however. While many people inside and outside of the family find their powers fascinating, other relatives refuse to take the dreams seriously. Rob’s wife Yamileth, for instance, is simply told to keep her disbelief to herself for the sake of her loved one’s idiosyncrasies.
When Rob “dream-dream-dreams” of Pablito committing a horrific crime in Costa Rica, instead of confronting his cousin directly or speaking to his mother or uncle, he chooses to keep quiet and have a friend living there check around for crime news. While Rob does believe the dream is real, he doesn’t want to do anything that could hurt his relationship with his dear uncle Pablo without tangible proof. After hearing his friend report back with nothing on Pablito, Rob is quick to write off the entire thing.
Pablito eventually learns of Rob’s investigation of him. Not long after comes his own rumor about Rob. Unlike Rob, Pablito’s lack of proof doesn’t affect the believability of his claim. Since people typically side with the victim, the family rule ensures nobody can directly oppose his accusation. Mara, Pablito’s mother and a woman known for her crazy and extremely coddling behavior, immediately takes her son’s side despite the contradictions in his claim, but worst of all, Pablo believes him as well. For Rob, who has always looked up to Pablo as a second father and his biggest role model, the lack of support devastates him.
Pablo avoids Rob for months. While he doesn’t actively spread the rumor, he never denies it either. In all that time, Rob never tries reaching out to him even though he believes Pablo is the only one who can safely deny Mara’s claims without causing an uproar, so he keeps waiting but Pablo never intervenes on his behalf.
Even if those around him insist they don’t believe Mara, whispers begin to follow Rob and Yamileth everywhere. When Rob remains too terrified of confrontation and continues to hold out hope that his uncle will eventually defend him, Yamileth demands action, but to Rob’s mother, Lauren, this accusation is nothing serious. With time, she believes Mara will calm down.
Rojas perfectly portrays the Latine family method of handling scandals by doing nothing at all. Lauren insists Rob must be patient and let it blow over; his sisters swear they believe him yet also crack predator jokes and tell him to be more understanding of why Pablo must side with his son and wife; his grandfather reminds him of the importance of practicing forgiveness when it comes to family. Each person who should be jumping to defend him instead offers meaningless, cowardly reassurances in the name of family.
As the only character, aside from Mara, who has married into the family, Yamileth is the one person willing to call out everyone’s behavior. She berates their inaction when they know Rob is innocent; she refuses to pity Pablo when he’s really a coward for never stopping Mara’s or Pablito’s behaviors; she points out the damage they’ve all allowed Mara and Pablito to get away with without repercussions. Yamileth even calls out Rob for letting their own family’s reputation be ruined while he stalls on speaking to Pablo. But for better or worse, Rob is no different from his conflict-adverse relatives.
“We had not been trained in how to handle family feuds beyond just avoidance of discord to begin with,” laments Rob on page 105. “We were trained to let things slide, hoping things would magically fix themselves. It had been drilled into us from toddlerhood that we, as a family, needed to be united because in the end, it was family — not friends or society — who would rally behind us in our time of need.”
As Rob grows paranoid and depressed, he begins to question the effectiveness of the “Golden Family Rule.” Rob’s anger finally reaches a boiling point when he loses his job. He decides it’s time to force a response out of Pablito no matter the cost.
From beginning to end, “They Hold Grudges” combines spectacle and scandal to create a tense, vein-popping read.
— Written by Michelle Benitez
— Copy edited by Valerie Izquierdo
Michelle Benitez (she/her) is a first-generation Mexican American from Naples, Florida. She graduated from Florida State University with a double major in editing, writing and media, and Spanish. During her time at Florida State, she developed a passion for text production/publications that promote Latine voices and challenge the current publishing industry’s market. Michelle aspires to become a developmental editor and enjoys bowling, reading and window shopping.
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