Fierce and fearless, The Glimmering Room beckons readers down into the young speaker's dark underworld, and because we are seduced by Cruz's startling imagery and language rich with "Death's outrageous music," we follow willingly. Peopled with "ambassadors from the Netherworld"--the orphaned and abused, the lost and addicted--Cruz leads us through this "traveling minstrel show / Called girlhood--" which is at once tragic and magical.