A tragicomic story of unrequited love and a view of New York through the wide eyes of an illegal immigrant. This book recounts the adventures of Marlon Cruz, a naïve young man from Medellín, Colombia, who agrees to accompany the beautiful, ambitious woman he loves to New York. On their first night in Queens, Marlon and Reina lose each other, and Marlon is left alone in a world larger, colder, and more bewildering than he had ever imagined could exist. A leader of the gritty-realist movement known as McOndo, Franco evokes the follies and pains of unrequited love at the same time that he explores deeper inequalities between North and South America.