Last Saturday was the One Book One Broomfield author event featuring Shanthi Sekaran, author of Lucky Boy. Lucky Boy was a very timely pick for this year's One Book One Broomfield program, dealing as it does with immigration and the separation of children from unauthorized migrant parents taken into detention. The story has two protagonists. One is Soli, a Mexican teenager whose parents send her north with $5 and big dreams; the journey is treacherous in the extreme but she eventually arrives at her cousin's home in Berkeley. Her cousin, while not the most sympathetic of characters, takes Soli in and finds her a housekeeping job. Soli soon discovers she is pregnant, but keeps her job--her employers even let her bring her son Ignacio ("Nacho") to work with her. But then a day of disasters lands her in detention, starting a long battle for her freedom and custody of Nacho.
The second protagonist is Kavya, the daughter of immigrants from India, who lives in Berkeley with her techie husband Richi. Kavya has not lived up to her parents' expectations, going into the culinary field rather than a more prestigious career. As a result of the recession, she has gone from being the chef at a trendy pizzeria to working in a sorority house. Kavya and Richi are struggling to conceive; after a miscarriage, they decide to try adoption and are advised that they should start as foster parents. They end up at a foster home that needs to move one of the children in its care; coincidentally, Ignacio is one of those children. Although they were supposed to be considering a baby girl, Kavya falls in love with Ignacio (whom she dubs "Iggy"). For Richi, the transition to parent is less instant. Eventually, they decide to try to adopt Iggy, setting up legal and moral dilemmas for themselves and Soli.
Ms. Sekaran's discussion of the book and her experience in writing it was fascinating. She was inspired by a news story about a Central American mother who was trying to wrest her child from the U.S. foster care system. That inspiration launched her on a multi-year project in which she did extensive research to ensure that she was representing the story of unauthorized Mexican immigration accurately and with empathy. Since I don't have direct experience of immigration myself, I can't judge the accuracy--but it was certainly described as a grueling experience that required incredible inner resources to survive. In contrast, Kavya's story is more closely related to Ms. Sekaran's own lived experienced and perhaps that is what allowed her to inject some humor into that part of the story. This humor was welcome relief from a very intense story (one member of my book group couldn't finish the book because it made her so sad).
Surprisingly, the book was not quickly picked up by a publisher. In the midst of having a baby, Sekaran revised the book fairly extensively. She reversed the ending and added an entire subplot about Richi's work. Frankly, with all that was going on in the book, I could have done without Richi's work struggles--but if it helped get the book published, then I guess it was worth it.
In the Q&A part of the evening, Sekaran was asked about how she came up with the title. She reported that it was perhaps the fifth title she proposed (one of the less successful being Nacho!--with the exclamation mark) and she liked it both because of its layered meaning and its sound--she finds L, K, and B to be good sounds (I didn't quite get that).
I admired the OBOB committee for picking a book with some controversy in it--and Sekaran for directly addressing the alarming policy changes under the current administration in her talk--but I was sad to see that the library did not plan a discussion group around the book. While the discussions have not always been well attended, this is a book that cries out for conversation!
