Not All Dead Together is a sweeping saga that chronicles the lives of family members brought together by blood and by choice over decades of violent sociopolitical conflict and exploitative foreign relations between the United States and Guatemala. Through lyrical, richly detailed narratives told from multiple perspectives over a period of 65 years, we meet an ensemble cast of characters at critical points in their lives. Miguel, a physician at a neighborhood clinic in Guatemala, must immediately treat a boy who shot his own hand. Years earlier, his sister, Aleta, strives to improve the lives of her indigenous neighbors despite relentless systemic injustices and the constant threat of state-sponsored terror. A rudderless young Peace Corps volunteer named Gray finds the familial connection she craves in caring and perceptive Aleta, brilliant Miguel, their guileful brother, Carlos, and their kindhearted mother, Doña Paz. As the characters' paths intertwine, all question the direction of their lives in a world where the political and personal are inextricable and their choices can have life-or-death consequences. Master storyteller Lynn Stansbury creates a vivid and intimate portrait of how the Guatemalan Civil War – a horrendous era in foreign policy that the U.S. rarely confronts – upended the lives of ordinary people and continues to perpetuate harm across generations. At once fierce and tender, Not All Dead Together wrestles with complex questions on the meaning of heroism, resilience, and found family.
