And what does that do to a family? Does it make you less of a family because you’re separated? So this book also explores what defines a family, whether it’s proximity or it’s love, and if that can be sustained over time and over distance. So maybe in some small way, people are getting a small taste of what it’s like to be separated from the people you love for reasons that are totally out of your control, and where you have no idea when is the next time that you’re going to see them or if you’re going to see them safely. And there are a lot of people who haven’t been able to see their loved ones in a long time, in as long as a year, even family members in the same city or the same state, because of the pandemic and the risks, or even the laws and the rules. At its best, Engel’s novel interrogates the idea of American exceptionalism, though the term never appears in the book. This is a really important book that takes many of the major. A gifted storyteller whose writing shines even in the darkest corners, Engel understands that the threat of violence is a constant in people’s lives and that emotional acts of abuse can be as harmful as physical ones. Patricia Engel: There’s something else that’s different about this moment, which we didn’t see coming, of course-and I certainly couldn’t have seen it when I was writing the book-is that we are living in a time of separation because of the pandemic. Infinite Country by Patricia Engel centers the political narrative as the human struggle of a family from Bogota as they experience the anxieties, aggressions and alienations of living in the United States without official documentation as if this somehow diminished their existence. In this week’s episode, Kendra chats with Patricia Engel, the author of Infinite Country, which is out now from Avid Reader Press.
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