Dave Davies

Rafael Agustin arrived at the age of 7 in the U.S. with his parents from Ecuador. It wasn't until years later that he realized that his family immigrated to the country illegally.

Pediatric neurosurgeon Jay Wellons regularly feels the exhilaration of saving a child from near certain death — and sometimes the anguish of failing to prevent it.

"Really, the heart of the story is about misplaced loyalty and what we can do with memory and how fluid and malleable memory can be when we ... use it to fit the narrative that we've created in our mind," says novelist John Vercher.