"Makes a case for ethnography as an art form. . . . A compelling, if deeply disturbing, account of women in a Brazilian shantytown."
New York Times
"Hauntingly beautiful. . . . [The] richly detailed qualitative analysis has thoroughly convinced this reader, at least, of her arguments linking maternal behavior and child death."
American Anthropologist
"Simply ... Read morebreathtaking. Its controversial theme—that mother love as conventionally understood is a luxury for those who can reasonably expect, as poor women in Brazil cannot, that their infants will live—is, in the best sense, illuminated by deconstructionist and feminist thought. The author's understanding of these lives on the edge is at times sympathetic, passionate, and sophisticated. But what makes the book as exciting to read as a good novel is her long-term interaction with a group of people that she clearly loves and the complete lack of the sense of the "other" that is so often found in anthropological writing. This work should have as much influence on studies of the relationship of women and children as did Margaret Mead's Growing Up in Samoa (1936) on the shaping of adolescence or Oscar Lewis's The Children of Sanchez (1961) on the cultural effects of poverty. Highly recommended."
Library Journal
"The compelling narrative investigates the everyday tactics of survival that people use to stay alive in a culture of institutionalized dependency ravaged by sickness, scarcity, feudal working conditions and death-squad "disappearances." 
Publishers Weekly
"A shattering portrayal of life among the impoverished inhabitants of Alto do Cruzeiro ('Hill of the Crucifixion'), a shantytown in the city of Bom Jesus da Mata in northeastern Brazil's Pernambuco Province. . . . A stimulating, consistently engrossing contribution to the scientific understanding of a complex and tragic situation."
Kirkus Reviews
“Difficult to stop reading.”
Horizons Magazine
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