BOOKS
Kind of Kin
Rilla AskewRRP: £8.99
1 May 2014
Published by Atlantic Books
ISBN: 9781782390138
RRP: £5.99
1 February 2013
Published by Atlantic Books
ISBN: 9781782390121
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.
SIGN UP TO OUR NEWSLETTER