Summary of Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

By Condensed Books

A high-quality summary of Patricia Engel ́s book Infinite Country, including chapter details and an analysis of the main themes of the original book.

About the original book:

Talia is being kept at a juvenile detention center in Colombia's forested mountains after performing an impulsive act of violence that may or may not have been justified. She needs to leave immediately and return to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States await her. She might miss her chance to be reunited with her family if she misses her flight.

Like the swirls of a kaleidoscope, the story of how one family came to occupy two distinct countries, two different universes, comes into focus. Mauro and Elena, Talia's parents, fell in love as teens in a market stall against the backdrop of civil war and societal instability. They leave Bogotá with their firstborn, Karina, in search of safety and opportunity in the United States on a temporary visa, and two more children, Nando and Talia, are born on American soil. We see the actions and indecisions that led to Mauro's deportation and the family's disintegration, as well as the expenses they've all had to bear since then.

Patricia Engel, an award-winning, an internationally acclaimed novelist who is also a dual citizen and the daughter of Colombian immigrants, gives voice to all five family members as they navigate the specifics of their situations. Infinite Country is "as much an all-American story as it is a global one," as it is rich with Bogotá urban life, deep in Andean myth, and tension with the daily reality of the undocumented in America (Booklist, starred review).

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.B. Publishers
• Release date: Jul 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005661830

Book preview

OVERVIEW

Patricia Engel, a Colombian/American novelist, published Infinite Country in 2021. It is a piece of general fiction set over a 20-year period in which a Colombian woman and husband emigrate to the United States and remain, illegal aliens, after their six-month travel visas have expired.

The couple's story is complicated by the fact that Mauro, the husband, is deported while Elena, the wife, stays in the United States with their two older children. The novel's plot revolves around Talia, the youngest child, and her effort to flee a girls' reformatory and fly to America.

Infinite Country was a New York Times bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection, an Amazon Best Book of the Month, an Esquire Book Club selection, and an Indie Next pick.

Elements of Engel's biography are paralleled in the novel: she was the bright kid of Colombian parents who ended up in New Jersey, just like Elena and Mauro's two daughters, and her age more closely resembles Elena's. Engel received Colombia's national literature prize, the Biblioteca de Narrativa Colombiana, for the first time in 2017.

SUMMARY

Talia, the novel's first major character, is a 15-year-old girl serving a six-month term in a girls' reformatory in the isolated Colombian mountains after pouring boiling oil over the head of a man who had previously similarly killed a kitten. Mauro, her father, has unsuccessfully attempted to get her released from the institution.

Talia was born in the United States, and he has an airline ticket for her to fly to New Jersey, where her mother, Elena, resides with her older sister, Karina, and brother, Nando.

Following Talia's successful escape from the reformatory, the plot alternates between her successful travel to her father in Bogotá and the fairly chronological explanation of how her family became so dispersed.

The narrator describes the meeting of Mauro, a street urchin evicted by his mother when he was ten years old, and Elena, the sole child of Perla, a petite single mother who owns and lives above a failing lavanderia (laundry). Their courtship and marriage take place over a long length of time.

After the birth of their first child, Karina, Mauro becomes convinced that relocating will allow him to find a more lucrative job, something Elena had never considered but now wants to do. They fly to Texas with six-month travel visas.

Mauro becomes disillusioned with the United States and, as their visas are set to expire, decides to return to Colombia. Elena then informs him that she is expecting a child. Fernando, the infant, is born in Texas, making him a US citizen and the only member of the family who is legally allowed to stay in the nation.

They move to South Carolina, where they are subjected to a great degree of physical and verbal abuse until eventually settling in Delaware. Talia, their third child, is born during their first winter there.

Mauro develops a serious drinking problem and is fired from multiple jobs as a result. The police arrest him after discovering him sleeping in the family's old vehicle. Elena pays for his release from prison, and the family moves to New Jersey.

They stay with Dante's family, a supposedly good-hearted immigrant who helps Mauro and Elena find work. Mauro confronts Dante about stealing some of his money, and Mauro is imprisoned and detained for several months before being deported to Colombia as a result of the confrontation.

Elena is still working and raising her three children in New Jersey. She makes the difficult decision to send Talia to live with Perla after realizing she