Lost Empress
Sergio de la Pava

New Jersey and Riker's Island set the stage for this story about a scorned heiress who takes on the NFL and also an unlikely art heist. 

Millionaire Nina Gill starts a renegade football league after a family dispute leaves her fuming at the Dallas Cowboys. She takes advantage of a labor stoppage to poach fringe NFL players and get a TV contract, and also operates her own team: the Patterson Pork. The Pork go on a tear and may complete an undefeated season, but then the NFL comes back. 

Nuno is in Riker's Island as part of a master plan with his ally Solomon to steal a painting hidden somewhere there. However, he gets into an altercation with a prison gang, goes through a psychotic episode, and also pines away from the lady of his life that got away: Dia Nouveau. 

Unlike A Naked Singularity, De La Pava's tale follows multiple characters across plot lines that intersect only briefly and sometimes indirectly. The author's humor and sarcastic wit are on full display throughout, and fans will love the rants on banana bits in cereal, meta-fiction according to Jesus, the art of 911 call transcription, and the space-time continuum. 

Lost Empress is a winding, engrossing story that at its best pokes fun at sports narratives while shedding light on the darkest corners of the prison industrial complex.

Sergio de la Pava is an lawyer and novelist with Colombian heritage. He is also known for his novel A Naked Singularity. 

Lost Empress is published by Pantheon. Click here to purchase.

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Reviewed by
Elliott Turner​
​11/1/2018

Elliott Turner is the author of The Night of the Virgin, one of "the top ten fiction books of 2017" according to TheLatinoAuthor.com. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Atticus Reviews, VICE, Fusion, SplitLip Mag, and Transect Magazine.

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