China

China is the book’s central character, protagonist and narrator. As the story begins, she is in her mid-teens. She has survived being left an orphan, without any sense of who her birth parents are. She has also survived being raised by violent foster parents, who in turn married her off to a violent man, whose anger she has also survived. She is the mother of two young children, whom she cares about but also feels she cannot mother appropriately. All these elements combine to drive China to leave her home and what is left of her family after her husband, Martin Fierro, is conscripted into military service.

China’s departure from her old life marks the metaphorical beginning of her book-long journey of transformation. That journey has physical, psycho-emotional, sexual, and spiritual qualities, all of which define the book’s overall, central thematic consideration of journeys and...