A Quest for the Great Name in a Nietzschean World

By Carlos Nicolás Flores

Literary Fiction, Coming of Age

Publisher: Atmosphere Press

Publication Date: 22 July, 2025

SYNOPSIS

Where is God amidst the mass graves, poverty, drug trafficking, and corrupt officials on the Texas-Mexico border?

Yoltic Cortez, a college dropout and aspiring writer in his mid-twenties, grapples with this question while living in an impoverished colonia. His bedridden father warns him to prepare spiritually for the challenges ahead by returning to their religious traditions and confronting the "Devil in the desert."

Encouraged by his mentor, the "Failed Poet," to pursue a literary career, Yoltic struggles to write his first book. His situation is further complicated when a young Mexican woman, fleeing the violence in northern Mexico, seeks his help.

In this Nietzschean world, a secular realm fraught with fear and loathing, where God has been declared dead, Yoltic's quest for redemption and wisdom unfolds. Pillars of Creation: A Quest for the Great Name in a Nietzschean World by Carlos Nicolás Flores offers a powerful perspective on the crisis at the Mexican-American border through the eyes of a gifted young Tejano.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A lifelong resident of the Texas-Mexico border, Carlos Nicolás Flores has much lived experience to draw from as a novelist. In Our House on Hueco, he portrays an impoverished family’s struggle to achieve the American dream. “This book feels like a classic to me,” states Naomi Shahib Nye. In Sex as a Political Condition, a satire of the cultural wars on the border, he reflects on the male condition at the end of the Cold War. In Pillars of Creation: A Quest for the Great Name in a Nietzschean (Atmosphere Press 2025), he portrays a young Chicano’s search for meaning in a world torn apart by violence on the Texas-Mexico border. According to Lily Andrews of Feather Quill Reviews, Flores “ably captures what it means to be stuck between cultures by showing how being Chicano isn’t just about language or heritage, but a constant tug-of-war between belonging and not.”

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REVIEW

Okay, I’m going to have to say it: the title of this book really put me off and the cover didn’t help much. But I was determined to give it a go and boy am I glad I did. Pillars of Creation: A Quest for the Great Name in a Nietzschean World by author Carlos Nicolás Flores is a gem of a book.

Set on the Texas-Mexico border, Pillars of Creation is the story of a young Tejano man, Yoltic Cortez, trying to find purpose in his life as he struggles to write his first book. He also has to come to terms with his dying father who has tried to impart his Christian principles into his only surviving son, yet Yoltic has his own sometimes conflicting belief system and the two grapple over their differences. A mysterious young woman, Marfil, adds to the chaos of his life as she appears then disappears back into Mexico to tackle her own problems.

Adding to his disillusionment are the abject poverty of the borderland, the drugs, which he uses, and the drug cartels, who run the Mexican side of the border with impunity and can reach into Texas seeming at will to wreak destruction.

Beautifully written, the book reveals both the beauty and ugliness of the area. Vibrant descriptions of everyday life, rich relationships, and ties to the land. It also portrays a sense of stagnant hopelessness that clings to everything in the border region.

The book is written in 2nd POV which is pretty rare these days, but I enjoyed it, probably for that very reason, but it really worked in this story and reads as if we, the reader, are the one being spoken to. I loved all the characters, Yoltic, Marfil, the Failed Poet, and the Jew. The book leaves you with a glimmer of hope that there will be a happy ending.

To learn more about the book, look for #LSLLPillarsofCreation on your preferred social media platform.

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