In many ways, The Line of the Sun is actually two novels combined into one. The first half of the book, characterized by dreamlike, fluid, third-person storytelling, is primarily the story of Guzman and secondarily the story of other village personalities.

The second half of the book, with its more traditional autobiographical tone and use of first person, is primarily the story of Marisol's cultural limbo between her mother's Island and the America into which her father wants so desperately for her to fit.

Even the meaning of the title seems to change between the two halves of the book.

In Guzman's Puerto Rico of the 1940s and 1950s, the sun is a symbol of the Island itself, with its ubiquitous hot rays and sparkling light. As the Puerto Ricans themselves are born of the sun (of their Island's culture), the title seems to refer to...