America is not the heart

Title:

Author:

Castillo, Elaine, author.

Personal Author:

Castillo, Elaine, author.

ISBN:

9780735222410

Physical Description:

408 pages ; 24 cm

Abstract:

After fleeing the Philippines, Hero De Vera arrives at her uncles where she is given a fresh start. He asks no questions about her disturbing political past, but his daughter, the first American-born family member, is unable to resist her curiosity especially about her cousin's damaged hands.

Subject Term:

American Dream -- Fiction.

Family secrets -- Fiction.

Filipino American families -- Fiction.

Filipino American women -- Fiction.

Filipinos -- Fiction.

Identity (Psychology) -- Fiction.

Immigrants -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

San Francisco Bay Area (Calif.) -- Fiction.

Genre:

Domestic fiction.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Belmont	Book	FICTION CASTILL	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Named one of the best books of 2018 by NPR, Real Simple, Lit Hub, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Post, Kirkus Reviews, and The New York Public Library

"A saga rich with origin myths, national and personal . . . Castillo is part of a younger generation of American writers instilling literature with a layered sense of identity." -- Vogue

How many lives fit in a lifetime?

When Hero De Vera arrives in America--haunted by the political upheaval in the Philippines and disowned by her parents--she's already on her third. Her uncle gives her a fresh start in the Bay Area, and he doesn't ask about her past. His younger wife knows enough about the might and secrecy of the De Vera family to keep her head down. But their daughter--the first American-born daughter in the family--can't resist asking Hero about her damaged hands.

An increasingly relevant story told with startling lucidity, humor, and an uncanny ear for the intimacies and shorthand of family ritual, America Is Not the Heart is a sprawling, soulful debut about three generations of women in one family struggling to balance the promise of the American dream and the unshakeable grip of history. With exuberance, grit, and sly tenderness, here is a family saga; an origin story; a romance; a narrative of two nations and the people who leave one home to grasp at another.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

Castillo's debut novel presents a portrait of the Filipino diaspora, told through the lens of a single family.Revolving around Hero de Veraa former rebel (with the scars to prove it) turned au pair of sorts in Milpitas, Californiathis is a book about identity but even more about standing up for something larger than oneself. The idea is implicit in that name, Hero, though Castillo pushes against our expectations by bestowing it upon a woman fighting patriarchy. Her employer, after allher sponsor, reallyis her uncle Pol, scion of an influential family. For the most part, Castillo tracks Hero's experiences in the San Francisco Bay Area, highlighting two sustaining relationships: the first with Roni, her uncle's school-age daughter, and the second with Rosalyn, with whom she falls in love. The most important relationship in the book, however, is the one she develops with herself. It's not that Castillo is out to write a novel of transformation; Hero is on a journey, certainly, but it's hard to say, exactly, that the circumstances of her existence change. And yet, this is the point, or one of them, that this sharply rendered work of fiction seeks to address. "She wasn't killedor didn't kill herself," the character reflects. "Tragedy could be unsensational." Unsensational, yesmuch like daily life. Castillo is a vivid writer, and she has a real voice: vernacular and fluid, with a take-no-prisoners edge. At the same time, she complicates her narrative by breaking out of it in a variety of placesboth by deftly incorporating languages such as Tagalog and Ilocano and through the use of flashback or backstory, in which we learn what happened to Hero before she left the Philippines. There are also two second-person chapters (the rest is told in third-person) that further complicate the point of view. Here, we encounter Pol's wife, Paz, who untangles the intricate ties of family, and Rosalyn, who explains the vagaries of love. Through it all, we have a sense that what we are reading is part of a larger story that stretches beyond the borders of the book. "As usual," Castillo writes, "you're getting ahead of yourself, but there isn't enough road in the world for how ahead of yourself you need to get."Beautifully written, emotionally complex, and deeply moving, Castillo's novel reminds us both that stories may be all we have to save us and also that this may never be enough. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.