The contradictions, false hopes and pervasive poverty of contemporary America has become so familiar in recent years that it is unsurprising to see a novel recreate such fate for the immigrants who’ve funnelled their way through Mexico only to arrive at broken dreams.

It’s winter at a housing estate in Delaware, Pennsylvania. Popular with Latinos, it’s where the Rivera family from Mexico decide to unload their stolen, kerbside furniture from a pick-up truck and start their new life, seeking a better future for their teenage daughter Maribel, who has befallen a terrible accident that has left her brain-damaged. Among the residents from Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Paraguay are the Toros, a family from Panama who have created a life for themselves in the States. Their teenage son, Mayor, is in the throes of adolescence and constantly living in the shadow of his older brother, which inevitably leads him to seek refuge and comfort in a kind of friendship with Maribel. It does not help that she is gorgeous. While the accident has left Maribel withdrawn and somewhat mute she turns the eye of every boy who passes, leaving her parents concerned and young Mayor infatuated.

Chapters alternate between Maribel’s mother, Alma, and Mayor, followed by a short vignette or biographical interlude from other residents living in the estate. While these are rich in character and Latino flair that gives texture to Alma and Mayor’s narratives, it also reads a little like an inventory of immigration records – which is probably congruent with the book’s title. The deep emotional ties to birthplace and new homelands could have reached a higher pitch if there were fewer narrators, but this is not to say the novel fails to draw out the emotional agony and triumph of those who desperately want a chance.

Luke May is a freelance reviewer.