Constance Squires's Blog - Posts Tagged "kind-of-kin"

Kind of Kin by Rilla Askew

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I am a reader that prefers depth to breadth. I want to be pierced. I want the universal and the personal to eat each other’s tails, to turn into an infinity sign. For this reason, I am sometimes not satisfied with fiction that takes a broad scope. Often what you get is wide but not deep, more sociology than fiction. Rilla Askew knows how to avoid this pitfall. Kind of Kin is deep AND wide—a big, multivocal book, full of characters who all seem like people I talk to everyday, real as real. Set in contemporary southeast Oklahoma where an anti-immigration law is creating crises for some and opportunities for others, Kind of Kin is full of characters who care to be good people, who try to understand their world and each other, who define honor for themselves on-the-fly and to their own surprise, who figure things out as they go along. The novel weaves together several characters’ lives, connecting them to a bigger, national picture, but it is a story about family, and home, and about the deeply personal moral decisions that people are forced to make in response to situations that they didn’t create and wouldn’t have chosen. It’s a crackling read, exciting from the get-go, deep and wide, lively and contemporary while also carrying the deeper rhythms of older stories, fundamental conflicts. Up until now, I would have put “The Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin at the top of my very short list of texts that deal with the pain and raw power that surround the issue of immigration. But I’m moving Kind of Kin to the top. That’s right, Rilla Askew beats Led Zeppelin.
Kind of Kin



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