Patricia Engel (1)

Infinite Country is an exploration of the impact of immigration law on one family. Elena, Mauro, and their daughter Karina go to the U.S. on a tourist visa and make the difficult decision to stay past its expiration.

In the U.S., others might consider them poor, but they make enough money to support themselves and to support Elena's grandmother Perla, who still lives in Bogotá. Without the money sent by Elena and Mauro, Perla wouldn't be able to support herself with the small amounts she show more earns at the lavandería that occupies the front part of her aging home. And Perla, like that home, is aging. As less and less business comes to the lavandería, she finds herself increasing unable to work, accelerating her financial instability. The U.S. also offers some safety from the ongoing civil war in Columbia.

The U.S. has its threats too, particularly hatred of immigrants and the easy availability of guns, but on the whole it seems an improvement over their old lives.

In the U.S. Elena bears two more children—Nando and Talia—who, unlike the rest of the family, have American citizenship. Mauro's undocumented immigration status, revealed when police question him because he's fallen asleep in his car, means he's flown back to Columbia—and is even less likely than he was before to be able to immigrate legally to the U.S. Elena has to find work to support herself, her children, and her mother in Bogotá, which exposes her to financial and physical abuse.

The first part of the narrative is primarily delivered by an omniscient narrator with little dialogue, so we're told about the family's situation, but can also hold it at a distance. This changes in the second half of the book when all three children become the narrators of chapters.

Patricia Engel does a brilliant job of depicting the children's different perspectives. All are concerned about the integrity of their family, and all those in the U.S. face racism. Karina has the extra burden of being undocumented; Nando has citizenship, but has had it made clear repeatedly that he is not a "real" American; and Talia, also a U.S. citizen, who was sent back to Columbia to care for her now departed grandmother is preparing to return to the U.S. after years away.

Sharing this family's journeys, especially when we begin to receive some of them in first person, is a heart-wrenching business of unending precarity. Infinite Country makes it clear why the U.S. is seen as a place of hope for so many and how that hope is repeatedly challenged by immigration laws that don't value family stability.

I received a free electronic copy of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus; the opinions are my own. show less

Sparse, raw. Engel can be succinct because her word choice is expert. I loved Sabina's imperfections, her doubt, her confusion, her humanness. Engel is one of a new generation ushering in the literary tradition of American coming of age protagonists with one foot still in another place and a stained America. I read this book during the same period as I listened to T Kira Madden narrate her own memoir and the crossover was magical. What may have seemed like a particular experience in an show more earlier decade, is becoming universal with writers like Engel are giving readers insight into the experience. Grateful for this book. show less

The first years in New York he thought, just like we all do when we arrive, that he would eventually go back once he had something saved, but now he’s been here long enough to know there is no returning–when you cross over that ocean and those borders, they cross over you.
from The Faraway World by Patricia Engel

I was blown away by Infinite Country by Patricia Engels and eager to read her again. The stories in The Faraway World offer insight into the lives of those who have left their show more home country and their families, believing in the myth of a better life elsewhere.

These characters exemplify that one’s losses are not always offset by the gains, that coming to America doesn’t guarantee safety. Even the woman whose husband gives her a life of luxury in America is more unhappy than the maid she hires for physical and psychological comfort.

In the opening story, a twin girl disappears and the American police comments, “This isn’t some third world country…The likelihood that your daughter was kidnapped is extremely remote,” but the reassurance proves to be false. In another story, a Miami teenager in love is unwittingly drawn into drug running.

A once chubby woman with a factory job in America undergoes a series of operations in her homeland to perfect her beauty. She is in love with a younger man; aa horrific accident, in an ironic twist, may send her back to Columbia to live with her mother.

There are also stories are set in Columbia, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic.

A Havana taxi driver’s passenger is on a pilgrimage to visit hundreds of churches, praying that an aunt in America will bring her over. She tells him, ‘I don’t want to love anything on this island. It will make it harder to leave.”

A hardened street kid’s life is changed when required to work at a church with a merciful priest whose impact changes his life and inspires a troubled girl who doesn’t understand why her mother in America hasn’t sent for her.

“No one is safe from this world’s horrors,” a Cuban woman is told. Her priest brother’s bones have been stolen from the cemetery. Like the bones of Cristobal Colon, whose bones were without a country, the dead have no home. The man she loved and who loved her chose to go with another woman to America.

Several stories probe relationships and marriage. An agency arranges a marriage between a Colombian woman and an American man; it isn’t a love match, not a perfect marriage. The wife is still an outsider, each is filled with doubts. And yet, in the end, they stay a family and the man realizes he is happy. A wannabe writer is in a relationship with two woman. When the unmarried woman has an opportunity to go to America, and take him with her, he has to chose. “You can live on your invisible words here…Not over there,” the married girlfriend warns him. A Colombian woman in America meets a troubled man with PTSD after being kidnapped back home. She takes him in and cares for him, uncertain about believing his story of being from a prominent family. Years later, she learns the truth.

These haunting stories reveal truths about what people give up for the hope of a better life and the too often disturbing reality of the cost of staying or leaving.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased. show less

Leaving is a kind of death~ from Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

In exquisite writing and storytelling, Infinite Country explores love that transcends borders and separation, the bifurcated identity of those who have left their homeland for new countries, the longing and sorrow of family separation, and the myth of American Dream.

Award-winning author Patricia Engel's moving story elicits compassion and an awareness that there are no safe havens except in a family's love.

People say drugs show more and alcohol are the greatest and most persuasive narcotics--the elements most likely to ruin a life. They're wrong. It's love.~from Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

In Bogota, during a violent time in Columbia, teenagers Mauro and Elena fall in love. They have a child and move to the United States hoping for a better life. When Mauro is arrested and deported, Elena decides to stay in America with Talia, born in Colombia, and their American born son and daughter. When she finds she cannot work with the newborn girl, she sends Talia back to her mother and husband to raise in Bogota. Years pass with the family separated, growing apart.

What was it about this country that kept us hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring along there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.~from Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

The American children feel alien in an America that fears and diminishes Latinos, living in overcrowded apartments filled with illegals, targeted with hate, their mother abused by bosses. They do not see America as a haven and envy their sister in Columbia, living with their father.

But every nation in the Americas had a hidden history of internal violence. It just wore different masks, carried different weapons, and justified itself with different stories.~from Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

Talia, loves her grandmother and father, but longs to know her mother and siblings. Mauro tells Talia the stories and myths of their Andean people about the jaguar, the boa constrictor, the condor, the creation story he was told, including the lesson "we're all migrants here on earth."

When Talia sees a vicious act and reacts rashly, she is arrested and, only age fifteen, is sent to a school in the mountains for six months. She escapes and must find her way across the mountains to her father and an airline ticket to her birthplace--America.

This is a story with a happy ending. The journey is fraught and long and difficult. Each person must forgive and hold on to the one place they belong: in each other's loving arms.

That night I thought about how love comes paired with failure, apologies for deficiencies. The only remedy is compassion.~from Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

I love this novel. The gorgeous writing, the way tears welled when I felt the loneliness of people losing connection without losing their love and commitment. The beauty of the Colombian land.

One night Elena dreamed they were back on the roof of Perla's house. She stood with Maruo and the three children under the aluminium sky, gossamer clouds pushed to the mountain crests, the church of Monserrate like a merengue atop its peak. In her dreams, they'd never left their land. ~ from Infinite Country by Patricia Engel
Americans must face the depicted reality of our prejudice and laws, the way we dehumanize immigrants. How we are not better than countries we consider less free.

This is a small book in size, but large in heart and vision, a stunning gem of a read.

I received a book from the publisher through a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. show less