The Book of Unknown Americans

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKWe had been planning our life here for so long.

Filling out papers, hoping, praying, waiting. We had all of our dreams pinned on this place, but the pin was thin and delicate and it was too soon to tell whether it was going to hold much of anything at all. When Alma Rivera arrives in Newark, Delaware she is brim full of the promise and possibilities of her new American home.

Hope that her luminous daughter Maribel will be helped by the specialist education the US can provide, and faith that her husband Arturo will flourish in a country that celebrates the hard-working and the talented. But the reality of life without status, money, family and friends soon becomes apparent. And when violence casts its shadow, Alma realizes that her biggest mistake was assuming that everything that could go wrong in their lives already had . . . In this tale of great imagination and grace, Cristina Henriquez gives voice to the stories of the displaced and unknown - the untold stories of our time that resonate for us all.