“The work of Sylvia Lyon Rodman defies categories. These interconnected stories (illuminated with the author’s illustrations) display far more than the trappings of magic realism. Her saga of a South American family, simultaneously privileged and haunted, professional and impractical, touches on Catholic rites, secular myths, masculine roles, feminine strategies–as well as the collision of cultures, languages and traditions…Readers searching for something new in style and substance need look no farther. This is truly breakthrough fiction.”                                         ~Stefan Kanter