<br>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.<br><br>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. . . .<br>