The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants

Marc Mendes, a serious San Francisco employment lawyer and recovering addict, thinks his biggest problem is work: toxic cases, a strained partnership, and a fraying relationship with his longtime partner, Isaac Perez. But everything tilts when Isaac—an undocumented Salvadoran who has built a life in the U.S.—is summoned to immigration court.

As Marc scrambles for legal help, family reconciliation, and a path to safety, a volatile former client, Alejandro Silva, pushes into Marc’s life with charm, danger, and a mirror to Marc’s unresolved past. The story builds toward an immigration hearing that exposes the system’s cruelty, a relapse that forces Marc to confront long-buried guilt, and a final choice: keep fighting in a country that won’t recognize their relationship—or emigrate to somewhere that will.

• Listeners who want a character-driven LGBTQ immigrant story about love tested by law, grief, and identity.
• Fans of emotionally intense, morally complex narrators—lawyers, recovering addicts, and people seeking redemption.
• Readers interested in courtroom pressure, deportation stakes, and family reconciliation without action-movie pacing.

Orlando Ortega-Medina is a novelist and lawyer born in Los Angeles to Cuban immigrants. He studied English Literature at UCLA and earned a JD from Southwestern University School of Law. He practiced criminal defense in Los Angeles and later worked in appellate and deportation defense in San Francisco. In 1999 he and his life partner expatriated to Canada, later marrying in Montreal when same-sex marriage became recognized. He is also the author of The Death of Baseball and The Savior of 6th Street.