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Joseph Cassara

Biography

Joseph Cassara

Joseph Cassara was born and raised in New Jersey. He holds degrees from Columbia University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been a writing fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. THE HOUSE OF IMPOSSIBLE BEAUTIES is his first novel.

Joseph Cassara

Books by Joseph Cassara

by Joseph Cassara - Fiction

It’s 1980 in New York City, and nowhere is the city’s glamour and energy better reflected than in the burgeoning Harlem ball scene, where 17-year-old Angel first comes into her own. When she falls in love with Hector, a beautiful young man who dreams of becoming a professional dancer, the two decide to form the House of Xtravaganza, the first-ever all-Latino house in the Harlem ball circuit. But when Hector dies of AIDS-related complications, Angel must bear the responsibility of tending to their house alone. The Xtravaganzas --- Venus, Juanito and Daniel --- are ambitious, resilient and determined to control their own fates, even as they hurtle toward devastating consequences.