The Book of Unknown Americans

March 24, 2014
In Henríquez’s latest, Arturo and Alma Rivera move from Pátzcuaro, 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, Henríquez (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, Henríquez 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. Agent: Julie Barer, Barer Literary.

May 1, 2014
A family from Mexico settles in Delaware and strives to repair emotional and physical wounds in Henriquez's dramatic page-turner.The author's third book of fiction (Come Together, Fall Apart, 2006; The World in Half, 2009) opens with the arrival of Arturo and Alma Rivera, who have brought their teenage daughter, Maribel, to the U.S. in the hope of helping her recover from a head injury she sustained in a fall. Their neighbors Rafael and Celia Toro came from Panama years earlier, and their teenage son, Mayor, takes quickly to Maribel. The pair's relationship is prone to gossip and misinterpretation: People think Maribel is dumber than she is and that Mayor is more predatory than he is. In this way, Henriquez suggests, they represent the immigrant experience in miniature. The novel alternates narrators among members of the Rivera and Toro families, as well as other immigrant neighbors, and their stories stress that their individual experiences can't be reduced to types or statistics; the shorter interludes have the realist detail, candor and potency of oral history. Life is a grind for both families: Arturo works at a mushroom farm, Rafael is a short-order cook, and Alma strains to understand the particulars of everyday American life (bus schedules, grocery shopping, Maribel's schooling). But Henriquez emphasizes their positivity in a new country, at least until trouble arrives in the form of a prejudiced local boy. That plot complication shades toward melodrama, giving the closing pages a rush but diminishing what Henriquez is best at: capturing the way immigrant life is often an accrual of small victories in the face of a thousand cuts and how ad hoc support systems form to help new arrivals get by.A smartly observed tale of immigrant life that cannily balances its optimistic tone with straight talk.

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January 1, 2014

In this latest from the author of The World in Half, the Mexican Rivera family moves to Delaware so that their brain-damaged daughter, Maribel, can attend a special school. Sharing the same neighborhood is the Panamanian Toro family, whose younger son, Mayor, becomes enamored of Maribel. As the bulk of the narrative shifts between Alma, Maribel's mother, and Mayor, the story unwinds into a Romeo and Juliet reenactment, with both families opposing the relationship, and tragedy the unexpected result. Henriquez does a spectacular job of creating highly believable characters and poignant scenarios: the guilt that wracks Alma because of the accident that rendered Maribel mentally disabled, the social and educational frustrations of a challenged adolescent, Mayor's budding teenage psyche, the inconsolable grief upon suddenly losing a spouse, and, above all, the experience of adjusting to a new culture and way of life. Regularly inserted is a series of testimonials by other participants, which, though thematically important, interrupts the story's otherwise smooth flow. VERDICT A well-written coming-of-age story set among "unknown Americans," ostensibly Hispanic but in many ways any family involved in similar circumstances regardless of ethnicity.--Lawrence Olszewski, OCLC Lib., Dublin, OH

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Starred review from April 15, 2014
On a cold, bewildering night, the Riveras, who have just left their happy lives in Mexico, are dropped off at a dilapidated apartment building on the western edge of Delaware. Arturo has given up his thriving construction company to labor in a dark, grimy indoor mushroom farm, while his wife, Alma, lonely and afraid, with no English and little money, worries incessantly about their beautiful 15-year-old daughter, Maribel. She has suffered a traumatic brain injury, and her parents have sacrificed everything to send her to a special school. Their building turns out to be a sanctuary for Central and Latin American immigrants, and as the Riveras' dramatic tale unfolds, Henr-quez brings their generous neighbors forward to tell the compelling stories of why and how they left Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and Paraguay. As one man says, We are the unknown Americans, those who are feared and hated. As Maribel opens up to Mayor, the infatuated boy next-door who is relentlessly bullied by his father and his classmates, terror of the unknown becomes a tragic force. Each scene, voice, misunderstanding, and alliance is beautifully realized and brimming with feeling in the acclaimed Henr-quez's (The World in Half, 2009) compassionately imagined, gently comedic, and profoundly wrenching novel of big dreams and crushing reality, courageous love and unfathomable heartbreak.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)