Holy ever-loving goodness, this book was spectacular. And we come into the story with Talia, she is now 15 years old, fighting to escape a (maybe/maybe not warranted) stint in a youth correctional facility and travel across the Colombia to get to the airport in time to make her flight to reunite with her mother and siblings.

Once there, they make the decision to overstay their tourist visa, to continue sending money back to Elena’s mother (Perla) in Colombia, and have two more children (Nando and Talia), When Mauro is deported, Elena makes the impossible chooses to send her youngest back to Colombia, knowing that she can return to the US when she’s older. Infinite Country follows Mauro and Elena who meet in Bogotá, Colombia and decide, after the birth of their first child (Karina), to the United States. Any other would be just as wrong or right.” Mauro’s journey is illuminated by his visits to the sacred Lake Guatavita outside Bogotá, where gods of wisdom reside, and where the birds above the lake mirror the family’s mantra: “We are all migrants here on earth.“Eventually she’d understand that in matters of migration, even accidental, no option is more moral than anther. She also heightens our interest by shifting the novel’s perspective to Talia’s sister in New Jersey more than midway through the book, and her voice adds a new dimension to the tale.Įngel does a marvelous job of rendering these characters as individuals, each with a unique story.

and its attitude toward Latinx immigrants, and Engel stands out as an especially gifted storyteller who elevates this saga through the use of Andean folk tales. Infinite Country joins a growing category of fiction about the U.S. She finally lands a job with a wealthy family, taking care of a son who forms a stronger bond with Elena than with his own mother. She is mistreated by one employer in a restaurant and disrespected by another. One of the novel’s multiple storylines follows Talia as she hitches rides back to Bogotá, where Mauro waits with a plane ticket to the United States, offering the possibility of a long-delayed family reunion.Īnother major storyline follows Elena, who tries to make a life for herself in New Jersey with her two older children. The story opens as Talia, now a nervy 15-year-old, breaks out of a Catholic reform school where she was sent after an impulsive, violent act.

Unable to bring infant Talia to her minimum-wage jobs, mother Elena sent the child, the youngest of three, to live with Talia’s grandmother in Bogotá. They remained together until the father, Mauro, was briefly imprisoned and then deported. It’s an intriguing, compact tale, rife with both real-life implications and spiritual significance.Įscaping poverty in Colombia, the family initially arrived in the U.S. The fourth novel by Patricia Engel is a 21st-century odyssey about a Colombian family bifurcated by immigration rules.

Infinite country patricia engel review