In the vein of ANOTHER BROOKLYN and AMERICANAH, a novel about a Dominican teenager's arranged marriage and immigration to New York City, set in the 1960s and inspired by the author's mother
Fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion never dreamed of moving to America, the way the girls she grew up with in the Dominican countryside did. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. It doesn't matter that he is twice her age, that there is no love between them. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year's Day, 1965, Ana leaves behind everything she knows and becomes Ana Ruiz, a wife confined to a cold six-floor walk-up in Washington Heights. Lonely and miserable, Ana hatches a reckless plan to escape. But at the bus terminal, she is stopped by Cesar, Juan's free-spirited younger brother, who convinces her to stay.
As the Dominican Republic slides into political turmoil, Juan returns to protect his family's assets, leaving Cesar to take care of Ana. Suddenly, Ana is free to take English lessons at a local church, lie on the beach at Coney Island, see a movie at Radio City Music Hall, go dancing with Cesar, and imagine the possibility of a different kind of life in America. When Juan returns, Ana must decide once again between her heart and her duty to her family.
Publisher: Macmillan
Original Binding: Trade Paperback
Pages: 336 pages
ISBN-10: 1250205948
Item Weight: 0.7 lbs
Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.9 x 8.2 inches
Customer Reviews: 4 out of 5 stars 10,001 to 50,000 ratings
Shortlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction YALSA Alex Award Winner and RUSA Notable Book Longlisted for an Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence and the Aspen Words Literary Prize "Lovely…Compelling…An intimate portrait...one all too familiar to many first-generation Americans." --The New York Times Book Review "Through a novel with so much depth, beauty, and grace, we, like Ana, are forever changed." --Jacqueline Woodson, Vanity Fair "Poignant." --The New Yorker "Triumphant...One of the most evocative and empowering immigrant stories of our time." --NBC "Ana's engrossing, lyrically told story illuminates both the pain and the potential triumph of the immigrant experience." --People "Sensational…At once tender, musical, and electric." --Esquire "Wondrous." --O, the Oprah Magazine "A novel that dares you to put it down, that rings with truth in every page." --Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Angie Cruz is the author of two novels, Soledad and Let It Rain Coffee, a finalist in 2007 for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She has published work in The New York Times,VQR,Gulf Coast Literary Journal, and other publications, and has received fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony. She is founder and editor in chief of Aster(ix), a literary and arts journal, and is an associate professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh.
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