America's Dream: Novel, A

America Gonzalez is a hotel housekeeper on Vieques, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico, cleaning up after wealthy foreigners who don't look her in the eye. Her alcoholic mother resents her; her married boyfriend, Correa, beats her; and their 14-year-old daughter thinks life would be better anywhere but with her. So when America is offered the chance to work as a live-in housekeeper and nanny for a family in Westchester County, New York, she takes it as a sign that a door to escape has been opened.

Yet even as America revels in the comparative luxury of her new life, daring to care about a man other than Correa, she is faced with dramatic proof that no matter what she does, she can't get away from her past.