My thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this advance copy. What attracted me to this book was the topic of migration, particularly from South America.

The introduction to this book is very misleading as to what follows in this story of undocumented migrants from Columbia. The novel tells of three generations, split between their homeland and the USA. It gives a overview of the conflicts that have become an everyday occurrence in both countries, highlighting bias, fear, homelessness and suspicion of the treatment afforded to migrants.

It is unimaginable the grief suffered by the Elena, the mother, when sending her baby daughter back to Columbia to live with her grandmother and father, remaining in the US with her two older children.Intriguingly, North America is described as a nation at war with itself, yet people still speak of it as some kind of paradise. This however can be applied to any country of which one is not a native.

The novel later shifts to the recollections of Karina and Nando, the two elder children, growing up in the US and the oppression they encountered. Intermingled throughout are enlightening Columbian folk tales.

Leaving is a kind of death. You may find yourself with much less than you had before. What a great expression. Throughout, the prose is beautiful, gentle and explicit and I found myself totally absorbed and focused. At times I found myself wondering was this fact or fiction? It’s a heartbreaking story of love, separation and perseverance.

A book with an admirable cause, to focus on immigrants and the plight of deportation and familial separation. I liked the use of Colombian mythology, and I found the choice to rarely use dialogue interesting (it reminded me of Claudia Hernandez's <i>Slash and Burn</i>, a novel that deals with similar themes, in a much riskier and more innovative way). To me, this book often read more like an essay or reportage rather than a novel. And maybe that was its ultimate goal and purpose, which is fine. In contrast to books by, say, Margarita García Robayo or Pilar Quintana, I understood the goal of this book as a) communicate a message and b) set characters about on a path that makes very specific points about social issues (how immigrants are abused, the cruelty of the system), rather than create a convincing, immersive, and dramatic fictional world. I agree 100% with everything the book is saying about immigration, so maybe the target audience for this is people who need to be convinced. But I would argue that novels like "La perra" or "Tiempo muerto" (a book that is also about Colombians in the US) are VERY effective at conveying their respective messages, much more than an essayistic tone would be. Another good contrast to this is Valeria Luiselli's "Lost Children Archive", which as the years go by I'm beginning to respect more and more, in terms of its artistic choices to narrate a story about migration via elusiveness and indirectness, while still articulating a clearly defined moral position. <spoiler>I also found the happy ending too convenient, though I suppose the characters had suffered enough, and deserved some joy.</spoiler> Overall, though, this is an interesting and worthwhile contribution to fiction in English about Colombia. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC.

Starting with what is possibly one of the greatest opening lines to a book ("It was her idea to tie up the nun"), 'Infinite Country' goes through the lives of a family as they chart their journeys to the US.

From parents who have overstayed their visas and live in constant fear of deportation, to two of their children, born in the US and therefore legal citizens, but whose lives would similarly be upended by deportation, to the third child Talia, who is a fugitive, escaping both the consequences of her crime and the violence that surrounds her, the ideas of changing country and of legal vs illegal suffuse every page of the book.

As, indeed, does Trump's legacy, albeit not by name. There is a reference to 'the election' and how the boys in the class suddenly start marching around with a new confidence, spouting the same lines about building a wall, and about Mexicans being rapists.

This starts to plant in the characters' minds that the US, for all it is held up to be as a place of refuge and freedom, is just as violent, if not more so, than the Colombia they leave behind, and there is a real tussle with whether home is something you can choose or even if you ever truly leave home.

There is a particularly well-handled moment within this where one of the children is excited about perhaps having a chance with a girl in his class, but it is the Trumpist chants of the boys that ultimately interrupt this, and he observes that the object of his affections, a white American girl, seems bound to those boys, as if she cannot speak out against them for some reason.

And this theme of silence also seems to permeate this book. Spare sentences speak of the son being beaten up by the same group of boys after he speaks to a teacher about what they have been saying to him, and nothing happens. Talia stays silent, revealing little about her story. The family must also stay silent, choose which stories not to tell, and which ones might save them, knowing that to get it wrong is to risk deportation.

Woven throughout are also little tidbits of information about Andean myths and tales, of giant condors protecting the land.

The timelines occasionally jumped around a little for me, and so I would sometimes have to go back a few pages to realise where everything now was, but there is a lot to appreciate and wonder at in this deceptively short novel.

Thank you to Net Galley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.