The Fault at the Center

by Sharon Rybak Portugal

The Fault at the Center is a candid, lyrical coming-of-age novel that tells the story of Sandy Fischer, an American girl growing up in the beautiful yet violence-ridden Guatemala of the 1960s and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0595217311
• ISBN13: 9780595217311
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A very good read

Unlike Marie Arana's American Chica, where the image of a bridge in Lima is used to describe the author's approach to her two cultures, Portugal's fictional account of her own youth uses the image of an earthquake fault both to describe her own broken family and the Guatemalan culture in which the story takes place. Although at first the book appears to be merely about the painful coming of age of a child with two very different American parents living abroad in utter conflict, Guatemalan culture slowly, almost imperceptibly, begins to take center stage. The author's masterful imagery and dry sense of humor make this book a wonderful way to begin to understand a foreign culture through American eyes.