About this item
In this timely and emotionally powerful novel, award-winning author Micheline A. Marcom recounts the epic journey of a young Guatemalan-American college student, a "dreamer," who gets deported and decides to make his way back home to California. Emilio believes he is living the American Dream: his parents, who emigrated from Guatemala to California, sacrifice daily to ensure it. And his life seems relatively normal until he turns sixteen. Like most teenagers, Emilio is determined to get his driver's license - however, his mother discourages it. When Emilio asks why, his parents reveal a shocking secret: he is undocumented. Emilio adjusts to his new normal. He attends UC Berkeley. He falls in love. All is going well ... until Emilio gets into a car accident and - without a driver's license or any documentation - the policeman on the scene reports him to Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE].
About the Author
Micheline Aharonian Marcom was born in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and raised in Los Angeles. She has published six novels, including a trilogy of books about the Armenian genocide and its aftermath in the 20th century. She has received fellowships and awards from the Lannan Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, and the US Artists' Foundation. Her first novel, Three Apples Fell From Heaven, was a New York Times Notable Book and Runner-Up for the PEN/Hemingway Award for First Fiction, and her second novel, The Daydreaming Boy, won the PEN/USA Award for Fiction. Marcom is also the founder and Creative Director of The New American Story Project [NASP], a digital storytelling project exploring the forces of migration and the lives of new Americans www.newamericanstoryproject.org. Marcom splits her time between Northern California and Charlottesville, Virginia where she is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia.
