By the Light of My Father's Smile

A family from the United States goes to the remote Sierras in Mexico—Susannah, the writer-to-be; her sister, Magdalena; and their father and mother. There, amid an endangered band of mixed-race blacks and Indians called the Mundo, they begin an encounter that will change them more than they could ever dream.

Moving back and forth in time, and among unforgettable characters and their magical stories, Walker brilliantly explores the ways in which a woman's denied sexuality leads to the loss of the much prized and necessary original self—and how she regains that self, even as her family's past of lies and love is transformed.