America Is Not the Heart

"Elaine Castillo’s blazing debut America Is Not The Heart springs alive from the first page. Her characters – Filipina and Filipina-American women living in San Francisco’s South Bay – are Technicolor-vivid, flawed and heroic, and her prose is as good as it gets. Castillo’s food writing will make your mouth water, and her love scenes will make your heart pound. Ambitious, sexy, sprawling and open-armed, America Is Not the Heart is the start of a phenomenal career."

"I learned many things from Elaine Castillo's deep and rich novel "America Is Not the Heart," a saga of several generations of Filipino-Americans in California. It's about culture and alienation, at all levels."