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. "With haunting magic realism reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende, Perez underscores the dual existence every immigrant's child navigates. And she reminds us that even those who make us live through the unthinkable can be redeemed by their power to love". - Latina magazine Iliana believes that by attending a college more than five hours from New York City she can become independent and escape the watchful eyes of her overprotective, religiously conservative parents. She soon realizes, however, that familial bonds are impossible to break. A voice that Iliana believes is her mother's haunts her nights with disturbing news about her sisters: Marina is careening toward a mental breakdown; Beatriz has disappeared; Rebecca continues in a marriage in which she and her husband and children are trapped in a brownstone populated by hundreds of hens. Convinced she might be of help, Iliana reluctantly returns to New York City. In this dislocating urban environment, far from her native country, she confronts all the contradictions, superstitions, joys, and pains of someone caught between two cultures but intent on finding a home. Loida Maritza Perez was born in the Dominican Republic in 1963. She lives in New York City.