The Myth of the Self-Made Man Audiobook By Ruben Reyes cover art

The Myth of the Self-Made Man

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The Myth of the Self-Made Man

By: Ruben Reyes
Narrated by: Inés del Castillo, Eric Yves Garcia, Christian Barillas
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From a stunning new Latino voice, Myth of the Self-Made Man is a wildly inventive story - part sci-fi, with echoes of Get Out - that plunges us into a brave new American landscape.

More than a hundred years into the future, as the US approaches its 400th anniversary, Tomas, a young graduate student, searches for the real identity of one of the cyborgs that maintained American homes. He has been haunted for years by an audio clip of a cyborg named Felipe and is intent on writing Felipe’s biography. In the clip, Felipe can only recite that he was made in America, but Tomas must find out: Where was the Self-made Man really from?

In the National Archives, Tomas uncovers a trove of articles, depositions, and interviews about many other cyborgs, boys from El Salvador and Guatemala kidnapped, detained, and reengineered at a monolithic New England company.

As we follow Tomas’ determined investigation into these lives, their voices echo through our own past, present, and future with unsettling clarity.

©2021 Ruben Reyes (P)2021 Audible Originals, LLC. Anthologies & Short Stories Latino & Hispanic Creators Science Fiction Short Stories

About the Creator

Ruben Reyes Jr. is an MFA candidate in fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is a graduate of Harvard College, where he studied history and literature and Latinx studies. His writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. He is at work on a novel and a collection of short stories.
Photo Credit: Santiago José Sánchez.

Christian Barillas
Inés del Castillo
Eric Yves Garcia

About the Performer

Christian Barillas is an actor with credits in theater, film, and television. His narration across multiple genres has garnered an Audie Award nomination, an AudioFile Earphones Award, and made "notable" by the American Library Association. On TV, Barillas is perhaps most recognizable as Ronaldo on Modern Family, where he appeared opposite Nathan Lane for seven seasons. Other television credits include The Handmaid’s Tale, The Kominsky Method, Grace & Frankie, NCIS: Los Angeles, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, and many others. Theater highlights include work at Yale Rep, Denver Center, Center Theatre Group, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, South Coast Repertory, and Huntington Theatre. In film, he most notably worked with Oscar-winning writer-director Martin McDonagh in *Seven Psychopaths.

About the Performer

Inés del Castillo is a bilingual actress, writer, and director. She has narrated more than 30 audiobooks, two of which are on YALSA’s 2021 Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults List: Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From and the multi-cast I Killed Zoe Spanos. She began her career as a member of the Spanish Repertory Theatre, performing Off-Broadway for five years, most notably in In the Time of the Butterflies. Since then, she has focused on TV, film, and voice-over, appearing on Blue Bloods, Law & Order: SVU, and FBI: Most Wanted. Her full-length play, Bear, Woman, is currently being developed, after having its first workshop at Quick Silver Theater’s Playwrights of Color Summit. When she’s not doing that, she’s probably hiking, reading sci-fi and fantasy books, or eating dark chocolate.

About the Performer

Eric Yves Garcia spins stories into a mic, whether alone in a booth or onstage with a piano. An actor and musician, Eric has voiced several mysteries, thrillers, YA, and romance, as well as non-fiction titles in history, self-help, memoir, and, uniquely, recipes. Eric's roles in multi-cast audio plays range from kids to classics, including Little Women starring Laura Dern, highlighted by Entertainment Weekly. As an award-winning singer/pianist, he has performed most nights of every week across NYC for more than a decade while also touring the US, UK, and Europe. His solo reviews have been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time Out New York, and Chicago Tribune. Of the two gigs, the narrator wardrobe is decidedly more breathable.
Photo Credit: Xanthe Elbrick

Featured Article: The Best Short Story Audiobooks to Immerse Yourself In Now


Short stories have had a huge impact on the canon of great literature. In fact, some of history's most revered novelists—Ernest Hemingway, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Louisa May Alcott among them—wrote short stories, which make excellent introductions to their work. Plus, these bite-size listens are the perfect way to get a big dose of literary inspiration even when you’re short on time. To get you started, we’ve compiled a list of listens.

Featured Article The Best Short Story Audiobooks to Immerse Yourself In Now
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Great story. Totally believable, even in the near future. Also disturbing. Ironically, I have just listen to the product in the George Floyd murder case. And while justice was done there, I’m not so sure America is ready for total justice, liberty for all and freedom.

Fabulous and thought provocating

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This story is so poignant and soul-shattering in all the ways great sci-fi and indeed literature at large should be... I am so grateful to the author for sharing their craft and perspective!

Devastatingly Well Written! A MUST read!

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I am focusing on the negative so people can evaluate if these points would bother them. If you get through the list unbothered, it is the book for you.

1. Dropped an F-bomb, the one and only of the book, in the last 2 minutes of the book. It was completely unnecessary, said by an unlikely character, and added absolutely nothing.

2, Details insistent with futuristic setting. Holograms and cyborgs exist, but you are watching something on a DVD? Seems unlikely, Even today, historically important data is digitized and the originals are kept in a vault for safekeeping. Pretty much everything is the same as today in the "future" except for the cyborgs and mention of a hologram.

3. The information that the main character found, if the story was real, would have been unlikely to exist (or be allowed to exist) and the further information that they received no one would have cared enough about the regular-joe main character to make sure they got it.

4. The poorly pronounced Spanish was a little annoying though this might have been intentional as a literary device.

5. I'm trying to avoid spoilers. So, basically something as mentioned as being "ethically sourced" but it is something that seems impossible to source ethically and the author doesn't explain how it could be possible. Missed opportunity to introduce some futurism and make the story more believable.

They Ruined It For Themselves

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What a captivating short story. I would have loved to listen to a full book based on this premise.

We need more!

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This is a disturbing yet enjoyable nonfiction story. You don't need to worry about your job being automated, you should be worried about ending up a cyborg.LOL.

Human plus technology = Selfmade man

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This short story is perfectly woven to include our border crisis with a dash of science fiction. I enjoyed the reader and the story. The conclusion made me so desperately sad.

A modern story of slavery and human trafficking

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AMAZING, too bad it's just a short story! left me wanting more. it's a very powerful story. In such a short time so much is conveyed.

AMAZING, too bad it's just a short story!

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Weaving together the realities of today with the possibilities of tomorrow, this is a peak at what could be. I hope there are plans to deepen and extend the story into a full length novel or series. This is a great short listen. The readers were excellent.

Orwellian

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This started in a very interesting sci-fi place and ended with me in tears over the erasure of a human beings existence. Short and beautiful.

This hit me so hard.

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The story which starts out blaming whites for xenophobia and racism , ends with minorities enslaving their own race for greed. And when given the opportunity to free a enslaved man, the minority refuse because it will cost them money and status.
So what is the author trying to convey? That all of humanity has the ability to do good as well as evil.

New slavery

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