This is a really unique memoir about a family of curanderos (healers) from Colombia and the legacy of trauma from the violence and displacement in the country. Ingrid is the narrator. The story is not chronological but starts when she is hit by a car while biking and suffers amnesia. Turns out her mother fell down a well as a child and had amnesia too. Both awoke with spiritual powers. Ingrid traces the legacy of healers. She isn't afraid to examine the ugly side as well - alcoholism, estrangement, violence, and other family secrets. The story follows as they go to disinter her grandfather's bones as part of a ceremony for healing. Unique and compelling. It left me with a lot of wonder about trauma and families and those who have access to a spiritual plane. 

Ingrid Rojas Contreras' memoir details her experience with her family's inheritance of magic. Her grandfather was a curandero, who had a shop set up in his house and cured people of their ailments. He had many powers and was supposed to pass on the secrets to a male child. But one of his daughters is the only one to seem to have any gifts and he resists teaching her. The author's mother is that child. When she falls down a well as a child and has amnesia, she is caught between her life that she doesn't remember and a ghost world. She soon takes on some of her father's responsibilities. They can both see and hear ghosts, as well as turn up in more than one place at once. 

When Ingrid also has a bout of amnesia in her early 20s, she becomes more interested in her family's heritage. She and her mother relate to each other. They spend time together on a mission to dig up her grandfather's bones and truly put him to rest, since people have been using his grave to ask for favors.

There was so much going on in here. It's beautifully written. There are definitely people who are not going to believe what the author is saying and she addresses the hypocrisy of, specifically Americans, not doing so. It's a powerful memoir that showcases family.