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.
“Treviño opens her debut novel with undocumented domestic worker Berta washing her patrona’s valuable crystal, worried that she might break something, exposing herself to abuse and vitriol. Berta tells the story of her stint in el Norte, mostly in San Antonio, in a voice that lilts with an endearing English language learner’s cadence as she follows the pathways of memory. While Berta’s road back to the baby she left in Lagos takes her through danger, anxiety and tenuous relationships, her innate intelligence, empathy and kinship with the natural world will guide her toward finding the courage she will need. Bad actors have their place in this novel, but thankfully, camaraderie and solidarity among workers and fellow humans shine through. This border story is a solid add for all collections.” —Booklist
“Natalia Treviño writes with profound tenderness, weaving an intimate portrait of maternal devotion. It is a story of unwavering love pushed to its limit, exploring the weight of a sacrifice no mother should ever have to bear.” —Reyna Grande, author of The Distance Between Us
“In a self-assured and lyrical voice, Natalia Treviño retraces the journey of Berta, a young undocumented Mexican woman, who has fled to ‘el otro lado’, and ends up working as a maid in a Mexican/American family in Texas, while she left her young daughter behind with her parents. Naïve but also down-to-earth and pragmatic, Berta is a profoundly moving, if flawed, heroine and her story will grip you until the very end of the novel.” —Catherine Texier, author of Breakup
“Natalia Treviño reminds us of the classic voices of Latina literature while creating her own elegant literature. This is our future. This is the next page.” —Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Devil’s Highway and The Hummingbird’s Daughter
“Full of poetic wisdom, The Road Back engages the heart in soulful reflection of what it means to be woman, mother, human. Bravo to Natalia Treviño for this visionary work. Her voice is needed. Her words are meant to be heard, recalled, pondered, like the lyrics of a long lost song.” —Guadalupe García McCall, author of Under the Mesquite, winner of the Pura Belpré Author Award
NATALIA TREVIÑO has won several awards for her poetry and fiction, including the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize and the Literary Award from the Artist Foundation of San Antonio. She is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, Macondo and a winner of the Academy of American Poets’ 2024 Ambroggio Prize for co-translating Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours (University of Arizona Press). She is the author of When You Were Human (Flowersong Press, 2026), VirginX (Finishing Line Press) and Lavando la Dirty Laundry (Mongrel Empire Press). Her work has been anthologized in Inheritance of Light: Contemporary Poetry (University of North Texas Press), Mirrors Beneath the Earth: Short Fiction by Chicano Writers (Curbstone Press), Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry (University of New Mexico Press) and journals including Poetry, Plume, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Bordersenses, Sugar House Review and RiverSedge.
