Lucky Boy - Softcover

Sekaran, Shanthi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1101982268 ISBN 13: 9781101982266

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2017

Synopsis

A gripping tale of adventure and searing reality, Lucky Boy gives voice to two mothers bound together by their love for one lucky boy.

“Sekaran has written a page-turner that’s touching and all too real.”—People

“Heart-rending and heartwarming....There’s something for everyone in this wonderful novel.”—Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, AND LIBRARY JOURNAL

In this astonishing novel, Shanthi Sekaran gives voice to the devotion and anguish of motherhood through two women bound together by their love for one boy. Soli, a young undocumented Mexican woman in Berkeley, CA, finds that motherhood offers her an identity in a world where she's otherwise invisible. When she is placed in immigrant detention, her son comes under the care of Kavya, an Indian-American wife overwhelmed by her own impossible desire to have a child. As Soli fights for her son, Kavya builds her love on a fault line, her heart wrapped around someone else's child. Exploring the ways in which dreams and determination can reshape a family, Sekaran transforms real life into a thing of beauty. From rural Oaxaca to Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto to the dreamscapes of Silicon Valley, Lucky Boy offers a moving and revelatory look at the evolving landscape of the American dream and the ever-changing borders of love.

About this title

Review:

An Amazon Best Book of January 2017: Lucky Boy presents two very different American stories, tied together by the fate of a child. When Soli Castro-Valdez leaves her small Mexican village for the United States, she endures the difficult journey but arrives pregnant and undocumented. Meanwhile, Kavya Reddy, whose parents immigrated to the US from India, is living a more peaceful life with her dot.com-employed husband in Berkeley. Unable to have a child, Kavya becomes a foster parent—and when Soli winds up in immigrant detention, her son Ignacio winds up with Kavya. But the story has just begun.

Author Shanthi Sekaran has written a novel that makes the reader think and feel while avoiding being didactic. Full of three-dimensional characters, the book is colorful and entertaining to the end. You’ll laugh and you’ll cry. You’ll question whether you should pick sides. And if you’re like me, you’ll be glad you picked up this penetrating novel. --Chris Schluep, The Amazon Book Review

About the Author:

Shanthi Sekaran teaches creative writing at California College of the Arts, and is a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. She is the author of The Prayer Room and her work has appeared in the New York Times, Best New American Voices, and Canteen, as well as online at Zyzzyva and Mutha Magazine. A California native, she lives in Berkeley with her husband and two children. Lucky Boy is her second novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1101982268
• ISBN 13: 9781101982266
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496