Skin (a novel, fourth edition)

Plagued by ghosts and dreams and a fantastical and sometimes frightening nature following a journalistic stint in war-torn Angola, Maria Miranda Flores, aka Pagan, travels across the oceans from her home in California to that of her grandmother in Goa in search of answers. It is through events narrated by her aging ayah Esperanca, that she unravels her mysterious past, going back several generations. This is a story of an immense family fortune built on slave running, of complex men and women, of social inequities disregarded in the larger interest of family and community, of genetic pools that extend beyond the Saraswat Brahmin and the highborn Castilian to embrace the African-Angolan. Buttressing an extremely involved family plot are detailed stand-alone accounts of the Portuguese conquest of Goa, the cross-continental slave trade, Angolan tribal lore, Hindu myths and much more.