Kind of Kin

• Book: Kind of Kin
• Location: Oklahoma
• Author: Rilla Askew

Cedar, Oklahoma. Small-town America. The Christian heartland. New legislation makes it a crime to help or shelter illegal immigrants – in this case Mexicans. This doesn’t sound too contentious at first. After all, no one wants illegals in their communities, do they? But are things always as simple as they might at first appear? What do you do if that “illegal” is married to your niece? What do you do if the whole local economy is supported by “illegals”? What do you do if arresting and deporting these migrants breaks up families? And what about the Christian injunction to welcome the stranger and help the wanderer?
All these issues are explored in this compelling and moving new novel from Rilla Askew. One day, local man Bob Brown, worthy citizen and loyal church attender, is arrested for giving shelter to a group of migrant workers in his barn. Convinced that he is only acting according to his Christian principles, he refuses to apply for bail and is put in prison. The burden of keeping the family together falls on his daughter Sweet, whose own principles are put to the test when her niece calls on her for help to shelter her Mexican husband.
Masterfully paced, with a mounting sense of anticipation and dread, the novel presents us with ordinary people battling extraordinary situations as they try to do the right thing. It examines the consequences of legislation when applied to the population in general, when it exiles workers, turns family and friends into informers and tears families apart.
But it is not a didactic book. It doesn’t preach or try to convert. It does what all the best fiction does, it demonstrates that there is always more than one side to an issue, and it makes you question your own beliefs and try to work out what you would do in such a situation. The backstories of the characters are revealed slowly over the length of the novel so that we come to know them gradually in all their complexity. With perhaps one exception, Monica Moorehouse, the villain of the piece, a self-serving and ambitious politician determined to make a name for herself with her recent anti-immigration legislation, who does at times descend into caricature, all the characters are both believable and likeable, and you end up caring deeply for them. As well as the central theme, the novel is also about family, religion, unemployment and poverty, love and loyalty. The novel juggles perspectives to create a broad view of all these contentious and fraught issues, which are as relevant to the UK as to the US.

Back to book