New York City, 1944. Hector Santinio is the younger son of Cuban immigrants Alejo and Mercedes. The fraught family of four shares their small, modest apartment with extended relatives in raucous Spanish Harlem. There are parties, dancing & dreamy, homesick storytelling about their idyllic island. But life’s realities are nevertheless harsh in the Santinio family’s adoptive land. Mercedes decides to take Hector and his brother Horacio to visit relatives in Cuba to better know her culture. While there, the three-year-old Hector contracts a serious illness that leads to his terrifying year-long hospitalization & recovery back in the United States. Caught between his overly protective mother’s fears for his health & his father’s macho behavior & disappointments, the adolescent Hector struggles to understand his identity and place in the world. In the aftermath of his father’s untimely passing, Hector staggers towards adulthood, haunted by notions of inadequacy and sadness and wrestles with the truth of his father as a deeply flawed but honorable man. This is a jewel-box of a tale whose treasure is the hope and yearning of immigrants in America. Includes a Reading Group Guide.
