Anna In-Between -- Elizabeth Nunez

<p>"A psychologically and emotionally astute family portrait, with dark themes like racism, cancer and the bittersweet longing of the immigrant." --<em>New York Times Book Review, </em>Editors' Choice<br /><br /> "Nunez has created a moving and insightful character study while delving into the complexities of identity politics. Highly recommended." --<em>Library Journal</em>, Starred Review</p><p> <em>Anna In-Between</em> is Elizabeth Nunez's finest achievement to date. In spare prose, with laserlike attention to every word and the juxtaposition of words to each other, Nunez returns to her themes of emotional alienation, within the context of class and color discrimination, so richly developed in her earlier novels. Anna, the novel's main character, who has a successful publishing career in the US, is the daughter of an upper-class Caribbean family. While on vacation in the island home of her birth she discovers that her mother, Beatrice, has breast cancer. Beatrice categorically rejects all efforts to persuade her to go to the US for treatment, even though it is, perhaps, her only chance of survival. Anna and her father, who tries to remain respectful of his wife's wishes, must convince her to change her mind.<br /><br /> In a convergence of craftsmanship, unflinching honesty, and the ability to universalize the lives of her characters, Nunez tells a story that explores our longing for belonging to a community, the age-old love-repulsion relationship between mother and daug