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Marci-smart, feisty and funny-tells the story with the wisdom of someone twice her age as she determines to defy her family and God in order to find her identity, sexuality and freedom. What Night Brings focuses on a Chicano working-class family living in California during the 1960s. The outcome is uplifting: Marci defies her family and her religion and, in return, finds her identity and her freedom. Her fighting spirit, her sense of justice, and her power of observation call to mind the heroines of books such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Bastard Out of Carolina. Marci's voice is authentic, determined, unique. Supported by a cast of characters that includes the sissified neighbor boy, the town librarian, a compassionate nun, a spell-casting aunt, and a chain-smoking, bingo-playing, knife-wielding grandmother, the novel builds to a suspenseful climax that leaves Marci with the feeling that she can’t trust anyone, even — or perhaps especially — God. At the same time, Marci prays to become a boy so that she can capture the attention of Raquel, the teenage beauty next door. Negotiating fear on a daily basis, Marci and her sister Corin use all the ingenuity they can muster to out-maneuver the hazards that crop up around them. She captures the intricacies of life in a working-class Chicano family dominated by a volatile father and a mother whose main concern is to please her husband.

Sandra Cisneros calls it “heartbreaking yet hilarious.” Margaret Randall maintains,“ What Night Brings puts one more wonderful Latina novelist on the must-read list right up there beside Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez, and Cristina Garcia.” Smart, feisty, and funny, eleven-year-old Marci’s voice draws the reader in from the very first scene as she tells her story with the wisdom of someone twice her age.Ĭarla Trujillo sets her first novel in the Bay Area of the 1960s. Winner of the 2003 Miguel Mármol Prize and runner-up for the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund Award, as well as Honorable Mention for the Writers at Work competition, What Night Brings is a story with unforgettable characters. What Night Brings is the unforgettable story of Marci’s struggle to find and maintain her identity against all odds — a perilous home life, an incomprehensible Church, and a largely indifferent world. Marci Cruz wants God to do two things: change her into a boy, and get rid of her father.