Living with her mother, Adelaida had a stable childhood in a prosperous Venezuela that accepted immigrants in search of a better life, but now she lines up for bread that will inevitably be sold out by the time she reaches the registers. When looters masquerading as revolutionaries take over her apartment, Adelaida must make a series of gruesome choices in order to survive in a country disintegrating into anarchy, where citizens are increasingly pitted against each other. But just how far is she willing to go?

"Borgo's beautiful prose belies the brutal reality of the breakdown in civil society she lays bare in this powerful literary look at strife-torn Venezuela."—Booklist