We the Other People – The Beggars of the Mercury Lights – introduces a new voice in American social literature, narrating the relationship between political power and invisible poverty amidst a crisis of conservative values, social injustice, the excesses of extremism, and the politicization of human suffering as a tool of power in the United States.

The story focuses on a family, the Newmans, whose recent economic misfortune has plunged their patriarch into a depressive state in the years leading up to the global health crisis, which forms  the backdrop of the novel. Steve Newman struggles to overcome his condition, creating imaginary games in which he mixes experiences and fictions as therapy to ward off depression. From his misfortune and desperation emerges the resilience that rescues him from the demons that haunt him, turning him into a more compassionate member of society. Steve must come to terms with his new life, no longer from the height of opulence as he did before his failure, but now knowing firsthand the abandonment of the poor and the socially ‘invisible’. Castaño-Bedoya’s novel recreates the lives of those who endure the difficulties of existence under the failure of the Constitution, and who clamor for their universal right to live without fear.

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