The Book of Unknown Americans
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
At the heart of this remarkable novel are Arturo and Alma Rivera, who have left their home in Mexico in the hope of getting help for their daughter Maribel, who has been in a terrible accident. They settle in the small town of Newark, Delaware, so she can attend a special school, but are soon frustrated by the difficulties of living in such an unfamiliar place, unable to speak or understand the language, and cut off from the friends and family they have left so far behind.
Soon they learn that their apartment complex is filled with other immigrants like themselves; people from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Paraguay, Peru. They have come here for different reasons: love, money, political freedom, but they have all faced the challenges - both practical and spiritual - of immigrating to a country where opportunity, as well as discrimination, is part of their daily lives. Ultimately, their different stories come together in a devastating tragedy that befalls the Riveras, but affects the entire building.
The struggles of this small community are brought to life with great imagination and grace. THE BOOK OF UNKNOWN AMERICANS is at once specific and universal, telling the stories of the displaced and unknown, the untold stories of our times.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Henr quez's latest, Arturo and Alma Rivera move from P tzcuaro, Mexico, to Delaware in hopes of securing a good education for their beautiful teenage daughter, Maribel, who has suffered a traumatic brain injury. Alone, isolated by language and poverty, the Riveras struggle to get by: Arturo works 10 hours a day at a mushroom farm, while Alma worries about predatory men taking advantage of her daughter. In the same apartment building lives Mayor Toro, the misfit son of Panamanian immigrants, who soon falls in love with Maribel. The budding romance, however, threatens to tear their families apart. Meanwhile, Henr quez (The World in Half) gives space to the voices of other immigrants men and women who have fled their South American and Central American homes to make a better life in a country that, as often as not, refuses to acknowledge their existence. Evoking a profound sense of hope, Henr quez delivers a moving account of those who will do anything to build a future for their children even if it means confronting the fear and alienation lurking behind the American dream.
