Mediaboss Marketing

By Melissa M. Firman

With a focus on illegal immigration that parallels current issues in the news, Shanthi Sekaran's second novel Lucky Boy explores how innocent lives, especially those of children, can irrevocably change because of reckless decisions and complicated systems.

"LUCKY BOY"

By Shanthi Sekaran G.P. Putnams Sons ($27).

Eighteen-year-old Solimar (Soli) Castro-Valdez dreams of a new life in America, away from her impoverished Mexican town of Popocalco. Her cousin promises work in California and her trusting father finances Solis trip, believing a coyotes false promises to safely smuggle his daughter into the country. Predictably, Solis trek becomes harrowing and dangerous (several rape scenes may be difficult for some to read); also, predictably, Soli falls in love with her protector during their shared journey.

Shortly after arriving at her cousin Silvias home in Berkeley, Soli discovers she is pregnant. A warm family reunion this isnt. A domineering and cold woman, Silvia manages a workforce of undocumented immigrants and only views Soli as a revenue source.

While Soli works as a housekeeper and cares for her newborn son Ignacio, Ms. Sekaran introduces her reader to Kavya and Rishi Reddy, an affluent and emotionally insecure Berkeley couple preoccupied with work and status. Desperately desiring a child for reasons mostly stemming from a chance to best Kavya's perfect childhood nemesis and to quiet societys expectations they turn to fertility treatments.

After a routine traffic stop gone bad results in Soli being discovered as an illegal alien, Soli and Kavyas lives and Ignacios begin to interact more clearly. Deportation procedures are initiated and Ignacio is placed into foster care, landing in the custody of Kavya and Rishi who, in one of the novels many disingenuous moments, hand-pick Ignacio among a room of toddlers and infants seemingly ripe for the taking.

This erroneous portrayal of the foster care and adoption process is only one example albeit a significant one of how Lucky Boy is rife with generalities and stereotypes. The novels plodding and stilted prose is laden with melodrama, flat metaphors and odd phrasing. (On Solis pregnancy cravings: She ate like a beast in a cave. She found herself addicted, thinking only of her next meal, where it would come from, what it would taste like, how much of it she could cram down the hole before anyone saw her.

The sex-on-demand nature of Kavya and Rishis fertility quest gets similar treatment: She was timing herself religiously now, waiting for mittelschmerz, that sharp ache in her lower abdomen that meant an egg was on its journey. She felt it that morning in the shower: The mittel had arrived and she was schmerzing like a fiend.

Although Soli and Kavyas experiences and losses evoke a readers compassion and sympathy, Lucky Boy doesnt find its focus and footing to succinctly convey how different paths and obstacles to motherhood shape ones identity. If a woman is unable to become pregnant, what messages are received from society about ones value? If someone doesnt have identification, how does that person justify ones worth and purpose and is it ever possible to gain a sense of belonging and place?

These are complicated questions, and while Lucky Boy attempts to answer them through the connected path of motherhood and immigration, this novels rambling journey stumbles before reaching its intended destination.

Melissa M. Firman is a Pittsburgh based freelance writer and editor.

Here is the original post:
'Lucky Boy': the tale of the life of an illegal immigrant - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette