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As moving as it is riveting, Patricia Engel’s
Infinite Country is a one-of-a-kind telling of the timeless story of migration. The era-leaping novel combines international history the Colombian Conflict, the introduction of the DREAM Act with the personal stories of a family whose bond cannot be broken by geography. A late-night dash for freedom in the opening chapter is just the start of a border-crossing relay race that spans the Western Hemisphere. Engel’s pacing is breathless she covers three generations in under 200 pages but just as frequently gives way to heart- and time-stopping moments.
Infinite Country is poised to be one of the most stirring page-turners of the year.
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Book World: Patricia Engel s Infinite Country focuses on the psychological pain of a family split apart
Jake Cline, The Washington Post
March 3, 2021
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By Patricia Engel
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Patricia Engel s novels don t begin so much as they crack open. Consider the first line of the Miami writer s 2010 debut, Vida : It was the year my uncle got arrested for killing his wife, and our family was the subject of all the town gossip. The start of 2016 s The Veins of the Ocean presents a man, maddened by his wife s infidelity, who takes their toddler son to a bridge, lifts the boy as high in the sky as he d go and throws him into Biscayne Bay. The child survives. The father is dead by the third page.
Barbara VanDenburgh scopes out the shelves for this week’s hottest new book releases.
1. “Klara and the Sun,” by Kazuo Ishiguro (Knopf, fiction, on sale Tuesday)
What it’s about: From the Nobel Prize-winning author of “Never Let Me Go” and “The Remains of the Day” comes a new story told from the perspective of Klara, an Artificial Friend who watches the world from her place in the store, hopeful that someone will choose her.
The buzz: “A haunting fable of a lonely, moribund world that is entirely too plausible,” says a starred review from Kirkus Reviews.
2. “The Committed,” by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove, fiction, on sale Tuesday)
Book World: 10 books to read in March
Bethanne Patrick, The Washington Post
March 2, 2021
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Festival Days/The Hill We Climb/The Code BreakerLittleBrown/Viking/Simon and Schuster - handout
Start your reading engines early this month, because this month s book picks have heft - in number of pages, yes, but also in terms of thought and inquiry. Novelists consider the nature of borders and how substances (including oil and drugs) corrupt; journalists examine health care, feminism, genetics; and a young but already accomplished poet releases her first book. The Soul of a Woman, by Isabel Allende (March 2) When I say I was a feminist in kindergarten, I am not exaggerating, declares the acclaimed Chilean journalist, novelist and activist in this memoir that reflects on her upbringing - she was raised with her two sisters by a single mother - while pondering women s nature and women s needs.