From the author of There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven this piercing genre-bending debut follows
two families in alternative timelines of the Salvadoran civil war in a stunning exploration of
displacement the mechanisms of fate the gravity of the past and the endurance of love.
Cambridge USA 2018. Ana and Luis' s relationship is on the rocks despite their many
similarities including mothers that both fled El Salvador during the war. In her search for
answers Ana uses The Defractor an experimental device that allows users to peek into
alternate versions of their lives. What she sees leads her and Luis on a quest through Havana
and San Salvador to uncover the family histories they are desperate to know eager to learn if
what might have been can fix what is. Havana Cuba 1978. The Salvadoran war is brewing and
Neto a young revolutionary with a knack for forging government papers meets Rafael at a
meeting for the People' s Revolutionary Army. The two form an intense and forbidden love
shedding their fake names and revealing themselves to each other inside the covert world of
their activism. When their work separates them they begin to exchange weekly letters but soon
as the devastating war rages on forces beyond their control threaten to pull them apart
forever.
