Description: "America Gonzalez is a hotel housekeeper on an island off the coast of Puerto Rico, cleaning up after wealthy foreigners who don't look her in the eye. Her alcoholic mother resents her, her married boyfriend Correa beats her, and their fourteen-year-old daughter thinks life would be better anywhere but with America. So when America is offered the chance to work as a live-in housekeeper and nanny for a family in Westchester County, New York, she takes it as a sign that a door to escape has been opened. Life in Westchester seems strange, though, to someone who has never left the tropical island where she was born"--Publisher marketing.
Brief description:
Esmeralda Santiago is the author of three groundbreaking memoirs: When I was Puerto Rican, Almost a Woman (which she adapted into a Peabody Award-winning movie for PBS Masterpiece), and The Turkish Lover. Her fiction includes the novels América's Dream (also made into a film) and Conquistadora, and a children's book, A Doll for Navidades. Esmeralda is passionate about the artistic development of young people and has traveled the world as a public speaker encouraging literacy, memoir writing, and storytelling. Her books have been translated into fifteen languages.
Review Quotes: "Con esta novela, Santiago se ha estableciado como una de las voces mas poderosas de la ficciin americana.""Boston Globe"Desearia poder escribir como Esmeralda Santiago! Lea este libro; dejese inspirar.""Autora de Waiting to Exhale"Emocionante y lleno de incertidumbre. El viaje fabuloso de Amarica Gonzales...es realizado con dominio.""Chicago Tribune