In her mind the U.S. was nothing more and nothing less than a pass overrun by gangsters, puts, and no-accounts. Its cities swarmed with machines and industry, as thick with sinvergüencería as Santo Domingo was with heat, a Cusco shod in iron, exhaling fumes, with the glittering promise of coin deep in the cold lightless shaft of its eyes.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao