Las Madres

From the award-winning best-selling author of When I Was Puerto Rican a powerful novel of family race faith sex and disaster that moves between Puerto Rico and the Bronx revealing the lives and loves of five women and the secret that binds them togetherThey refer to themselves as “las Madres” a close-knit group of women who with their daughters have created a family based on friendship and blood ties.Their story begins in Puerto Rico in 1975 when fifteen-year-old Luz the tallest girl in her dance academy and the only Black one in a sea of petite light-skinned delicate swans is seriously injured in a car accident. Tragically her brilliant multilingual scientist parents are both killed in the crash. Now orphaned Luz navigates the pressures of adolescence and copes with the aftershock of a brain injury when two new friends enter her life Ada and Shirley. Luz’s days are consumed with aches and pains and her memory of the accident is wiped clean but she suffers spells that send her mind to times and places she can’t share with others.In 2017 in the Bronx Luz’s adult daughter Marysol wishes she better understood her. But how can she when her mother barely remembers her own life? To help Ada and Shirley’s daughter Graciela suggests a vacation in Puerto Rico for the extended group as an opportunity for Luz to unearth long-buried memories and for Marysol to learn more about her mother’s early life. But despite all their careful planning two hurricanes back-to-back disrupt their homecoming and a secret is revealed that blows their lives wide open. In a voice that sings with warmth humor friendship and pride celebrated author Esmeralda Santiago unspools a story of women’s sexuality shame disability and love within a community rocked by disaster.