Geographies of Home
A Novel
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
After leaving the college she'd attended to escape her religiously conservative parents, Iliana, a first-generation Dominican-American woman, returns home to Brooklyn to find that her family is falling apart: one sister is careening toward mental collapse, another sister is living in a decrepit building with her abusive husband and three children, and a third sister has simply disappeared. In this dislocating urban environment Iliana reluctantly confronts the anger and desperation that seem to seep through every crack of her family's small house, and experiences all the contradictions, superstitions, joys, and pains that come from a life caught between two cultures. In this magnificent debut novel, filled with graceful prose and searing detail, Loida Maritza Pérez offers a penetrating portrait of the American immigrant experience as she explores the true meanings of identity, family--and home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Out of the conflicting claims of family bonds, ethnic heritage and personal fulfillment, debut author Perez creates a rhapsodic narrative. It is a story much like Dominican Republic native Perez's own, about a family who moves to Brooklyn from that island to seek better lives. Iliana, the youngest daughter, comes back home from college the week before Christmas after receiving what she believes to be several telepathic messages from her ailing mother. On her return, she is confronted by family members exhibiting madness, grief and violence. Her sister Marina, who has been raped, is borderline schizophrenic and suicidal; another sister, Rebecca, refuses to leave her abusive husband; her brothers have distanced themselves, and her rigidly conservative parents, Aurelia and Papito, are in a state of denial, having placed all their hopes in their religious faith. Iliana's educated intelligence and strong, almost supernatural intuition chafe against her respect for her parents and the religiously inflicted guilt she feels as she attempts to help her family and define a "home" for herself. Ironically, it is another sexual assault that allows Iliana to understand her resiliency and her family's strength, forged from traditional patterns and bitter experience. Perez skillfully blends atmospheric elements of Dominican culture into her American setting. Her prose is fluid and graceful but guardedly understated; yet the emotional undercurrent is strong and affecting. She directs her story with a steady hand, and though the rendition of cultural dislocation is bleak, the powerful message is of the redeeming power of family love that contributes to individual courage and self-fulfillment. First serial to Bomb; foreign rights sold in the UK, Germany and Holland; author tour.
