Will I love The Book of Unknown Americans?

I loved the chorus of voices in this novel.

Each resident of an apartment complex shares a glimpse of their life, and together those brief stories create a powerful portrait of immigrant experience. The novel reveals both the individuality of each character and the shared emotions that connect them—hope, uncertainty, longing, and resilience.

Reading it felt like listening to a neighborhood speak collectively about the challenge and courage involved in building a new life in America.

The best 21st-century American literature builds on all that has come before but at the same time offers us something profoundly new, and I don’t know any book that does both those crucial things better than Henríquez’s novel.

I love that this intimate story of one undocumented family turns a mirror to our collective community, that it is defined by 2014 contexts but reveals timeless truths about love and loss, and that every time I return to it, Henríquez both rips my heart out and heals me.

The worst and best of us are here on every bracing and moving… show more.