Kind of kin - Rilla Askew

Your Grandpa is a felon and a Christian. He says he's a felon because he's a Christian. So says Aunt Sweet to her nephew Dustin, when her father, who has been raising Dustin, is arrested for hiding migrant workers. The law that makes harbouring 'illegals' an offence is the brainchild of the ferociously ambitious Oklahoma politician Monica Moorehouse. Aunt Sweet takes Dustin in, but Dustin is bullied by her son Carl Albert, and goes on the run, aided by an illegal the sheriffs didn't find. Meanwhile, Sweet is asked by Dustin's married sister to hide her husband, Juanito, a Mexican without papers. As Grandpa Brown holds fast to his beliefs and Dustin remains missing, Aunt Sweet fights to hold the family together, and to do what seems right. In a gripping and compelling narrative, Kind of Kin lays bare the consequences of a law that exiles workers, turns friends into informers, and tears apart families. It also shows how some - and ultimately a whole town - will unite to protect their own.

Rilla Askew has written three literary novels previously for which she received a 2009 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dublin IMPAC Prize, and twice received the Oklahoma Book Award. Askew divides her time between upstate New York and Oklahoma.

Rilla Askew's raucous, ebullient novel... gets to the very heart of what it means to be part of the family of man... Here, immigration has a human, heartbreaking face... Askew's characters are both larger than life and deeply, complicatedly human... powerful and moving
San Francisco Chronicle

Rilla Askew's wonderful novel shows us why fiction is more essential than ever. Her unflinching portrait of a family whipsawed from within and without is a story for our time, the story of a struggle to find some measure of peace and certainty in an unhinged world. It's proof of Askew's flat-out genius that Kind of Kin is merciless, yet strangely full of mercy - read it through to the last page and you'll see what I mean.
Ben Fountain, author of 'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' and 'Brief Encounters with Che Guevara'

An impressive, witty and thought-provoking family saga
Red

Kind of Kin is a kind of miracle. The character Sweet is an American original, doing her best to hold the family she loves together while trying not to fall apart. A winner.
Adriana Trigiani, bestselling author of 'The Shoemaker's Wife'

Rich, rewarding, and humane
Publishers Weekly

A novel as ambitious as it is complex: Askew deftly weaves multiple points of view into a narrative that's spacious, messy and, above all, honest... [it's] Askew's lush, nuanced characterization and expert feel for dramatic tension that make this novel soar
Kansas City Star