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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
May 2017, 352 pages
Paperback:
Apr 2018, 368 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Janet Garber
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Finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction.
Named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed, Bustle, and Electric Literature, Lisa Ko's debut novel is essential reading for our times.
One morning, Deming Guo's mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant named Polly, goes to her job at the nail salon and never comes home. No one can find any trace of her.
With his mother gone, eleven-year-old Deming is left with no one to care for him. He is eventually adopted by two white college professors who move him from the Bronx to a small town upstate. They rename him Daniel Wilkinson in their efforts to make him over into their version of an "all-American boy." But far away from all he's ever known, Daniel struggles to reconcile his new life with his mother's disappearance and the memories of the family and community he left behind.
Set in New York and China, The Leavers is a vivid and moving examination of borders and belonging. It's the story of how one boy comes into his own when everything he's loved has been taken away - and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of her past.
This powerful debut is the winner of the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for fiction, awarded by Barbara Kingsolver for a novel that addresses issues of social justice.
The day before Deming Guo saw his mother for the last time, she surprised him at school. A navy blue hat sat low on her forehead, scarf around her neck like a big brown snake. "What are you waiting for, Kid? It's cold out."
He stood in the doorway of PS 33 as she zipped his coat so hard the collar pinched. "Did you get off work early?" It was four thirty, already dark, but she didn't usually leave the nail salon until six.
They spoke, as always, in Fuzhounese. "Short shift. Michael said you had to stay late to get help on an assignment." Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses, and he couldn't tell if she bought it or not. Teachers didn't call your mom when you got detention, only gave a form you had to return with a signature, which he forged. Michael, who never got detention, had left after eighth period, and Deming wanted to get back home with him, in front of the television, where, in the safety of a laugh track, he didn't have to worry about letting anyone ...
Whatever answers the reader comes to, she will appreciate the beautiful and layered portrayal of these characters, the colorful imagery of the landscape and story, and the wake-up call to the fate of immigrants and adoptees yesterday, today and in the future.
(Reviewed by Janet Garber).
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Barbara Kingsolver
The Leavers is courageous, sensitive, and perfectly of this moment. Kaitlyn Greenidge, author of We Love You, Charlie Freeman
The Leavers is about the bonds between parents and children and the many pulls of home. It was a book I did not want to end. Emily Raboteau, author of Searching for Zion
In writing about Polly and her son Deming, Ko captures one family's unique experience of becoming American while also exposing the loss of status, economic desperation, physical endangerment, and psychological grit of the undocumented worker as well as the alienation, double consciousness, mobility, and comparative access of the first generation. Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth
“There was a time I would have called Lisa Ko's novel beautifully written, ambitious, and moving, and all of that is true, but it’s more than that now: if you want to understand a forgotten and essential part of the world we live in, The Leavers is required reading.
In Lisa Ko's The Leavers, one of the female characters is abruptly transported to the fictional Ardsleyville immigration detention center. She is interned in an unheated room with other women, glaring lights on overhead 24/7. She's fed inedible mush, given minimal time outside, and is usually shackled. No attempts are made to secure her legal advice or help her contact her family, and she isn't allowed visitors and doesn't know the whereabouts of her young child. The reader knows her motives, and knows of her hard work ethic and love for her son. She is not a violent criminal – her only crime was hiring a smuggler to sneak her into the country.
The character is fictional. But her plight is true.
Detainment has been a part of ...
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