Brass

DEBUT Home at last. That's what the people in Aliu's first novel are seeking: a feeling of belonging, a sense of possibilities. Originally from Lithuania, Elsie's family settles in a working-class town in Connecticut, where brass factories provide employment for the many immigrants who have come there. Elsie works at the local diner and finds what she is looking for in Bashkim, who also works there. Although he has a family back in Albania, he and Elsie get together in what becomes an unfortunate relationship. Seventeen years later, Lulu, Elsie's daughter, searches for new possibilities and is hampered by frustration. She knows nothing of her father, and asking her mother for answers goes nowhere. She decides to take on her own search for his identity, in the hopes that finding this piece of the puzzle will help everything in her life fall into place.