May 2013

Book talk & signing with
Reyna Grande, author of
The Distance Between Us: A Memoir
Tuesday, May 7 @ 7 p.m.
Olympic Room, Main Library

The Distance Between Us is Reyna Grande's personal, heart wrenching, and ultimately triumphant memoir about her journey from Mexico to the United States, where she learned that the separation between a parent and child can be measured as much in emotional distance and abandonment as it can be in miles. An engaging writer with a talent for infusing her narrative with personal and affecting characterizations and stories, Grande truly offers an unprecedented look into the immigration experience and the reality that millions of people are facing each day.

Award-winning writer Reyna Grande vividly brings to life her tumultuous early years, capturing all the confusion and contradictions of childhood, especially one spent torn between two parents and two countries. Elated when she feels the glow of her father's love and approval, Reyna knows that at any moment he might turn angry or violent. Only in books and music andher rich imaginary life does she find solace, a momentary refuge from a world in which every place feels like "El OtroLado."

The Distance Between Us captures one girl's passage from childhood to adolescence and beyond. A funny, heartbreaking, lyrical story, it reminds us that the joys and sorrows of childhood are always with us, invisible to the eye but imprinted on the heart, forever calling out to us of those places we first called home.

Book signing follows.  (A conversation with Reyna Grande)