Kind of Kin: A Novel - Softcover

Askew, Rilla

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062198807 ISBN 13: 9780062198808

Publisher: Ecco, 2014

Synopsis

With the passing of a new state law, it becomes a felony to harbor an undocumented immigrant in Oklahoma. So when Robert John Brown, a churchgoing family man and respected community member, is caught hiding a barnful of migrant workers with no papers, he is arrested and sent to prison. Meanwhile, his ten-year-old grandson Dustin tries to help the sole escapee of the raid reunite with his family, and his granddaughter, Misty, is struggling to raise her daughter alone after her husband, an undocumented immigrant himself, has been deported. Then there's Brown's daughter Sweet, who finds her life unraveling: her father is refusing to speak in court to defend himself, her nephew is missing, her niece is in need of shelter, and the stress of it all is destroying her marriage.

Rilla Askew's brilliant, hilarious, and heartfelt novel follows a handful of complicated lawmakers and lawbreakers as workers are exiled, friends turn informers, and families are torn apart in a statewide exodus of Hispanics. In the end, Kind of Kin reveals how an ad hoc family, and an entire town, will unite to do anything necessary to protect its own.

About this title

About the Author

Rilla Askew received a 2009 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is the author of four novels, and has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Dublin IMPAC Prize, and is a three-time recipient of the Oklahoma Book Award.

From the Back Cover

It's 2008, and Sweet Kirkendall's life is unraveling: her father is in jail for harboring undocumented Mexicans, her husband is away working, her young son is turning into a bully, she's a full-time caretaker for an invalid elderly family member, and now Sweet has to take in her orphaned ten-year-old nephew, Dustin, because his grandpa has been jailed. A contemporary everywoman, Sweet struggles to hold her family together under pressures from within and without. She has little money, no help, and surely no time to truck with current political issues--until they come roaring into her life via a new state immigration law, a fractured family, a lost child, an ambitious legislator, a grandstanding sheriff, a niece in desperate need of help, and the national news media camped on her doorstep.

In a novel that tackles hot-button subjects--immigration, religion, civil rights, small-town politics, and the everyday struggles of working families--Rilla Askew vividly weaves together an authentic and compelling narrative with grace and humor.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ecco
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0062198807
• ISBN 13: 9780062198808
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432