Lucky Boy

It is no surprise that Shanthi Sekaron's novel is about a boy. Ignacio El Viento Castro Valdez is indeed a lucky boy, because he is deeply loved. His birth mother is Solimar, a young woman who discovered her pregnancy after she traveled--illegally--across the border into the U.S. from Mexico. Her trip was not without its horrors, those dangers and traumas that unaccompanied young women are often forced to face. But she makes a life for herself and her son, living with her cousin Silvia and serving as a housekeeper and nanny to a well-to-do family in Berkeley, CA. She fiercely loves her baby, whom she calls Nacho, and he accompanies her everywhere.

Several blocks away from the street where Soli works, Rishi and Kavya, a young couple whose both sets of parents emigrated from India, struggle to have a child of their own. Having tried everything they can emotionally and financially afford, to no avail, they decide to turn to adoption. They enroll in foster parent training, and then are given the opportunity to foster a child, which could perhaps lead to adoption.

Even though readers can easily anticipate the juncture at which Soli's and Kavya's paths will cross, it is still painful and heart-breaking to see it happen. A simple traffic stop turns Soli's life upside down, as she is sentenced to a detention center and prepared for deportation. Nacho, whom Kavya and Rishi come to call Iggy, meets a second Mama who loves him nearly as deeply as Soli does.

This is a wonderful story that explores complicated issues of love and belonging in the framework of the current state of immigration policies in the U.S. Highly recommended!

--review by Kelly Currie

Carnegie's Maid

This story takes place in the years 1863 through 1900. Clara Kelley is sent across the Atlantic from Ireland to America by her parents. She is to go to Pennsylvania to live with a cousin and find work, so that she can send money back home. Upon landing in New York, no one is waiting for her as she sees other passengers fall into the arms of waiting relatives. She walks on. She hears her name being called out. She follows the voice. IT belongs to a tall man wearing a bowler hat and topcoat finer than she has ever seen. "Clara Kelley, are you?" he asks. "Yes, sir," she replies. He informs her that he is to take her to Mrs. Seeley, who trains young girls to be hired out as maids.

The "Clara Kelley" for whom the man was looking never made it off the ship. Clara knew she had a choice to make in that moment. She could tell the man the truth, or she could become that other "Clara Kelley," get a ride to Pennsylvania, and have a job waiting for her. As you might guess, she chooses the latter. Once in Pennsylvania, she meets the mistress, Mrs. Carnegie, to whom she will be a lady's maid.

After several months she becomes very good friends with Carnegie's oldest son, Andrew, who is a very successful businessman. As their friendship grows, they also become silent business partners.  Clara becomes very wealthy from her understanding of the business.

I really enjoyed reading this book for its history of immigrants and the establishment of the first Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh. Andrew Carnegie went on to fund more than 2,500 libraries in America, one of which is the Delphi Public Library!
     

   

Underground Fugue by Margot Singer

In a London neighborhood, the lives of four characters quickly become entangled over a few months in 2005. Esther has fled her marriage and life in New York to care for her mother, Lonia, as she battles cancer. As the disease takes hold, Lonia begins to spend more and more of her time in a dream-like state, remembering her escape from Czechoslovakia at the beginning of WWII. Next door is Javad Asghari, a neurosurgeon who fled Iran as a young man to escape the ayatollah’s fundamentalist regime. Javad’s 19-year-old son Amir is a college student struggling to find himself and reconcile his Iranian heritage and British upbringing. Over the long summer Esther and Javad form a friendship that has a possibility of blossoming into romance. When the London Underground is bombed by Islamic fundamentalists, Esther must make a decision that will change her, Javad, and Amir’s lives forever. 

A musical fugue is a piece of music where a musical theme is repeated or imitated throughout the piece by multiple voices, with the parts building onto and weaving in and out of sync with one another. In psychology, a fugue is a dissociation or loss of the self. In her debut novel, Margot Singer masterfully reflects both definitions in one unforgettable story. The fugue theme is prevalent throughout without feeling heavy-handed or forced. It is easy to see the differences among these four characters, and yet their lives are often reflections of one another’s. With plenty of tension and intrigue, Underground Fugue is a stark look at loneliness and isolation that reads like a thriller.

-Portia Kapraun