This novel is based on a true event. Rural migrant farm workers, who have been suffering and starving through several years of drought take a train to the provincial city to seek help from the government. When they arrive, they are rounded up, treated as criminals, and penned in a human corral without food or water, pending shipment back to the country. Scenes of the treatment they receive (as well as their sufferings on the farms on which they were basically slave labor) are interspersed with scenes of preparations for a lavish birthday party to be celebrated that evening by a wealthy young man. Many of the officials who could have intervened to .help the workers are also preoccupied with the party, and choose not to inconvenience themselves.

The novel is intricately constructed as the relationships among the various characters, and their stories and roles in this shameful event are gradually unveiled.

Well-worth a read ( )