Paper House of Night is the story of El Monte, California, a rural community overwhelmed by the post war baby boom; seen through the eyes of Sean Sullivan as he navigates the gauntlet of siblings, religion and the horrors of his dysfunctional family life. As he grows from late childhood into his teens, the seemingly never ending 'lessons' of his chaotic family life begin to form, and sometimes force, his world view.
Paper House is a deeply sad, yet amazingly funny and uplifting story of family, poverty, the Church, sin and redemption, questioning the status quo, growing up and, ultimately, breaking free.
In the early sixties, in an attempt to outrace poverty, Thomas and Marge Sullivan move their growing brood to the sleepy barrio of El Monte, on its own tragic fast track to becoming an overcrowded ghetto. As the family experiences the radical cultural shift to a town dominated by a rising Mexican-American gang culture and waves of immigrant workers, a daughter drops dead just weeks before her wedding, followed in quick succession by the death of two more children. Each of the remaining siblings reacts in a different way to the devastation that rocks the family. When Stephen, Sean's protector, dies on the operating table, Sean's situation deteriorates further. Jim, moving beyond alcohol, begins to challenge taboos with his younger sister, and when Sean threatens him with exposure, the hate intensifies.
As the parents disappear into their fantasia of religious devotion, the moral center of the family collapses. Mike, the oldest, becomes a drug dealer while Jim becomes an alcoholic whose obsessive hatred of Sean leads to a final confrontation that severs the last of his family bonds.
