Their Dogs Came with Them: A Novel [Paperback]

Award-winning author ofUnder the Feet of Jesus, Helena María Viramontes offers a profoundly gritty portrait of everyday life in L.A. in this lyrically muscular, artfully crafted novel.

In the barrio of East Los Angeles, a group of unbreakable young women struggle to find their way through the turbulent urban landscape of the 1960s. Androgynous Turtle is a homeless gang member. Ana devotes herself to a mentally ill brother. Ermila is a teenager poised between childhood and political consciousness. And Tranquilina, the daughter of missionaries, finds hope in faith. In prose that is potent and street tough, Viramontes has choreographed a tragic dance of death and rebirth. Julia Alvarez has called Viramontes one of the important multicultural voices of American literature. Their Dogs Came with Themfurther proves the depth and talent of this essential author. The novel will no doubt -- like her other work -- break ground and enrich the range and vision of our American literature. I hope you, too, will feel the enthusiasm and faith in her work that I do. -- Julia Alvarez Helena María Viramontes's power is in her heartfelt observations about the forgotten poor. Not simply the poor, I mean the despised and reviled: the homeless, the immigrant, the cholas and cholos. This novel takes flight in its accurate portrayal of its characters' language and landscape. She is as compassionate as John Steinbeck, as sweeping as the unflinching camera of Sebastião Salgado. -- Sandra Cisneros, author ofCarameloandThe House on Mango Street Their Dogs Came with Themis a book that is upon you before you know it and once read cannot be shaken. A bravura performance by one of our country's finest talents. Extraordinary. -- Junot Díaz, author ofDrown Written with an honesty and compassion that is lacking in our time,Their Dogs Came with Themilluminates a people and place where hopes arise and are defeated, only to arl³.