Patricia Engel’s novel Infinite Country shot onto the New York Times bestseller list upon its US release this month. Set to be released in the UK in May 2021 – the novel is available for pre-order here now. In our review, we reveal why the novel is such a vital read.
Patricia Engel’s 2020 novel Infinite Country has seemingly already become part of the literary zeitgeist – shooting onto the New York Times bestseller list.
‘There are innumerable joys left out of these pages. Sorrows too. A life rendered will always be incomplete.’ Much like Villavicencio’s creative non-fiction work The Undocumented Americans last year, Engel’s novel explores the trauma of separation and isolation across borderlines, but also tells the joys of the human experience lived despite and during this time of hardship. The novel tells the intricate story of a family, initially from Colombia, who move to the US and are ultimately separated when the father (Mauro) is deported, with the youngest daughter Talia sent to live with him in Bogota. Through telling the story, Engel’s tells a wider story about migration and different cultures – seamlessly weaving in details of Colombian folkloric tales in a way that is both tasteful and necessary rather than totemic.
At its core though, Infinite Country is a story about family and family ties that supersede borders and individual experiences, along with a question of identity – Talia, one of only two members of the family to be born in America resides in Colombia with Mauro, yet Elena and Karina live as undocumented Americans. Engel gives each member of their family their turn and perspective. Talia, the initial protagonist of the story, throughout is trying to make her way through Colombia back to Bogota, having been detained at a girls’ reform school, in order to get back to Mauro and the plane ticket out of the country to be reunited with her mother Elena in New Jersey. Initially, it does feel that this will be a ‘chase against time’ tale, but the question that runs through the novel is not a question of ‘if’ Talia will get back to America, but ‘how’ the family got to a state where this is a question, bringing in the story of Mauro and Elena’s love story and journey to America before their ultimate separation.
Much like Colson Whitehead, Engel’s writing contains a breathless energy that propels it from the start to the conclusion of the novel, containing the entirety of her world in under 200 pages. It’s succinctness is a mark of the poise of her writing, weaving seamlessly the story of three generations of this multinational family, with a light touch characterisation that does not feel lacking – the story is more about the ideas and the family history when viewed from a distance rather than in its detail. Although the story could have been fleshed out in double the amount of pages – so breathless is its narrative arc – still thematically she covers vast swathes of ground without it feeling superfluous or light touch. Engel is a masterful writer and this is a phenomenal, propulsive tale of family and immigration that captures the experience of the individual and of so many.
