About the Book

Tras la muerte de sus padres en un accidente automovilístico, el joven Andrés Segovia y sus hermanos se ven obligados a mudarse a México con el resto de la familia. Esta decisión, a pesar de haber sido tomada con la mejor de las intenciones, es un error que trastornará para siempre la vida de Andrés. Después de varios años de vivir en México luchando contra el estigma de ser un hispano nacido en Estados Unidos y sintiéndose siempre fuera de lugar, Andrés decide regresar a los Estados Unidos. Las autoridades lo detienen un día y lo ponen bajo la tutela de una terapeuta llamada Grace Delgado, una viuda que vive en El Paso. Su relación se convierte pronto en una gran amistad, y justo cuando comienzan a florecer y a disfrutar de su vida juntos, se descubren secretos inconcebibles acerca de la muerte de los padres de Andrés . . . secretos que bien pueden destruir la posibilidad que tienen de ser felices.

Critical Praise

“A vivid story about a community of scarred, deeply human souls within a callous, indifferent America.” — Kirkus Reviews

“His characters provide rich fodder for Seanz’s unique ability to look deeply into his characters’ past to see what motivates them in the present and which of their memories are impossible to shed. A former priest and award-winning poet thoughtfully shares his meditations on multiculturalism and familial love—especially the struggle to survive its loss.” — Booklist

“Ben Saenz’s vivid imagination captures all that is beautiful, agonizing and redemptive in the crossings we make through borders of geography and culture. But it is in the interior journeys of the psyche and the soul that we must find salvation; Saenz’s brilliant prose penetrates to that core and he finds and exposes that truth. A reader can ask for no more than this: to be spellbound by a story, and to come to the last page with a sense of having been being changed and allowed to carry something of it away.” — Abraham Verghese, author of My Own Country and The Tennis Partner

“Only Benjamin Alire Sáenz. . . can capture, with his acrobatic skill of voice, character and theme, the darkness, the hidden life of betrayal, and the nascent, eternal, always hopeful redemption to be found in the heat and dust of our misunderstood land.” — Denise Chávez, American Book Award-winning author of Face of an Angel and Loving Pedro Infante

“Saenz offers beautifully nuanced characterization, and interweaves disparate needs and lives with a skillful, sensitive touch.” — Publishers Weekly

“Set in El Paso, Texas, Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s novel In Perfect Light is suffused with the desiccating heat and dusty brilliance of a Southwestern border town—a landscape that seems perfectly suited to his cast of burned- out, emotionally withdrawn characters.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“[Sáenz] takes [his characters’] lives and twists them, turns them, throws wrenches and sharp corners in them. He’s merciless about making these people real and about making them go through things we all go through— anger, unfairness, love, and death.” — Albuquerque Journal

“Saenz captures what we all do every day, really, to find peace for ourselves.” — Philadelphia Inquirer

“Dignified but heart-wrenching . . . Sáenz has plotted In Perfect Light impeccably.” — Texas Monthly

“Sáenz’s luminous prose shines through.” — Houston Chronicle

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Product Details

• ISBN: 9780060779221
• ISBN 10: 0060779225
• Imprint: Rayo
• On Sale: 10/11/2005
• Trimsize: 5.310 in (w) x 8.000 in (h) x 0.830 in (d)
• Pages: 368
• List Price: $13.95
• BISAC1 : FICTION / Literary
• BISAC2 : FICTION / Family Life
• BISAC3 : FICTION / Hispanic & Latino