Casandra, Calia, and Caleb endure life under two tyrannies: that of their parents, and the Island’s authoritarian dictator. Papa was the dictator's former right-hand man. Now, he’s a political pariah and an ugly parody of a tyrant. As for Mom, his wife and hateful second in command, she rules from the mind. Obsessed with armchair psychoanalysis, she spends her days reading self-help books and seeks to diagnose the kids. But within these walls, a rebellion is fomenting. Casandra, a cynical, self-important teenager with the most unlikely of attractions, recruits Caleb, meek yet gifted with a deadly touch, to join her in an insurrection against their father’s arbitrary totalitarianism. Meanwhile, Calia, the silent, youngest sibling who just wants to be left alone to draw animals, may be in league with the flies—whose swarm in and around the house grows larger as Papa’s violence increases. Translated from the Spanish by Kevin Gerry Dunn.