Dimensions
136 x 203 x 23mm
In 1979, after a devastating hurricane, five well-dressed toddlers are discovered inside the cabin of a pleasure cruiser, alone and dehydrated, drifting in the Caribbean Sea. They are too small to contribute any information about their circumstances, and speak only a few words of Spanish. Despite extensive media coverage and international cooperation, the children's origin remains a complete mystery. Soon after being dubbed 'the islanders,' they are separated and each is adopted by different families in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
Thirty years later, the children -- now adults -- still remain close although their origins remain a mystery. David, one of the 'siblings,' is determined to unlock the door to their hidden past once he is diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer and begins to have flashbacks to his missing childhood. In an effort to bring them all together one last time and perhaps find out once in for all if they are related by blood, he decides to gather the rest of the group on Griswold Island, a beautiful, tiny piece of land off the coast of Connecticut with hundreds of years of history and owned by Julia, David's 'one that got away'. The gathering is the first time that they are able to share and document the wisps of fading memory, all of it conflicting, all of it charged with emotional attachments to whatever truth they have each come to embrace.
With a gripping story and elegant prose, Sandra Rodriguez Barron's The Islanders beautifully relates these characters' lives. The fateful week they spend on Griswold Island holds the key to their past and just may change their futures forever.
