Infinite Country

Only women knew the strength it took to love men through their evolution to who they thought they were supposed to be.

Both bloated (in its prose) and devoid of the fabric that, for me, gives a multi-generational tale its weight. The subject matter is highly-charged, but the characters that move throughout feel more puppet than person.

I can accept character-as-stand-in for the purpose of making broader comments on the nature of home, security and violence, but so much of the book's impact hinges on a lack-lustre emotional payload that these positions would be better expressed in a work on non-fiction. As if to reinforce this, the strongest image from the book, and the one that will undoubtedly stick with me the longest, comes from reality—the haunting and devastating story of Omayra Sánchez.

The ending adds to the sense that these characters have not been real with a saccharine against-all-odds, redemptive resolution that reinforces that love and family are the Infinite Country, but at the cost of undermining the themes of generational trauma, and the impact of the book as a whole.