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Overview
Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. "When 59-year-old Zacarias Torres dies of a massive heart attack while in Brazil on business, the news shatters the veneer of complacency surrounding his family back home in Miami. In the interim between his death and burial, various members of his family come to terms with the turbulent emotions they had previously chosen to ignore. Empty lives, unfulfilled dreams, failed marriages, alcoholism, and depression all come to light as the family attempts to deal with the crisis. Suarez, a critically acclaimed author, tells the story of the Torres family in brief chapters in which the characters reveal their hopes, dreams, and secrets. Ultimately a message of hopefulness, Suarez's rich, mesmerizing novel, though it dissects their dissolution, celebrates the ties that bind families together"—Kathleen Hughes, Booklist.
Synopsis
The morning Zacarias Torres is stricken and killed by a heart attack in the Brazilian brush, everything was business as usual for him. His wife, back home in Florida, was contemplating an uneventful day in her tedious existence as an upper-middle-class mother of grown children. The phone call bearing the unwelcome news of Zacarias's precarious condition shatters the apparent peace of the entire Torres clan and sets in motion wave after wave of emotions that reveal unsavory realities the family chooses to ignore: the alcoholism of a woman who feels unneeded by husband and daughter, the uncertainties of a girl on the eve of a suitable marriage, the realization by a young woman that her whirlwind romance and wedding to a wealthy Argentinian socialite were but a detour in the process of her growth as a person, the pain of the family dowager relegated to play no more than a ceremonial role in the lives of children and grandchildren, the trials of a busy teacher trying to cope with the complexities of her love life and demands from her conservative family.
BookList
When 59-year-old Zacarias Torres dies of a massive heart attack while in Brazil on business, the news shatters the veneer of complacency surrounding his family back home in Miami. In the interim between his death and burial, various members of his family come to terms with the turbulent emotions they had previously chosen to ignore. Empty lives, unfulfilled dreams, failed marriages, alcoholism, and depression all come to light as the family attempts to deal with the crisis. Suarez, a critically acclaimed author, tells the story of the Torres family in brief chapters in which the characters reveal their hopes, dreams, and secrets. Ultimately a message of hopefulness, Suarez's rich, mesmerizing novel, though it dissects their dissolution, celebrates the ties that bind families together.