Marjorie Celona Libros

So opens Marjorie Celona's highly acclaimed debut about a wise-beyond-her-years foster child abandoned as a newborn on the doorstep of the local YMCA. Swaddled in a dirty gray sweatshirt with only a Swiss Army knife between her feet, little Shannon is discovered by a man who glimpses her troubled mother as she vanishes. That morning, all three lives are forever changed. Bounced between foster homes, Shannon endures abuse and neglect until finding stability with Miranda, a kind but no-nonsense single mother with a free-spirited daughter. Yet Shannon defines life on her own terms, refusing to settle down and longing to uncover her roots, particularly the question of why her mother abandoned her. Interwoven with Shannon's story is her mother, Yula, a girl facing a desperate fate in the days leading up to Shannon's birth. As past and present converge, the narrative unfolds an unforgettable tale of identity, inheritance, and forgiveness. Celona's beautifully crafted novel offers a deeply affecting look at the choices we make and what it means to be a family, marking the debut of a magnificent new voice in contemporary fiction.