The Road Back

Two years for two thousand dollars. That’s the agreement Berta made with the wealthy Thompson family in San Antonio. That amount of money would change everything for herself and her toddler Josefina, whom she left under the care of Amá and Apá in rural Lagos de Aves, south of the border. But life as a domestic worker is not easy; la Señora is demanding, mercurial and manipulative, and without legal documentation, there’s nothing Berta can do about her employer’s decision to withhold payments until her commitment is fulfilled.

Her existence in the Thompson household grows more precarious through a budding relationship with la Señora’s rebellious teenage son. When she discovers their connection and threatens to send Berta away with nothing, Berta packs her bags– taking not the money she has earned but a trampled and steady dream. Together, the young couple heads to California where they both find work, Aaron in a small tire shop and Berta in the fields of the Coachella Valley.

Berta’s journey through the present is haunted by memories from her past: a “wedding that was not a wedding, only sadness” to Josefina’s father; asking her parents to care for her child while she is gone; and walking alone in the desert, injured and abandoned by the man who was paid to take her across the border. Laying bare the disorienting blend of hope and exploitation many immigrant women experience, Natalia Treviño’s novel, complemented by striking cover art from Celeste De Luna, is both a modern migration odyssey and a meditation on the cost of dreaming across borders.