A gripping tale of adventure and searing reality, Lucky Boy gives voice to two mothers bound together by their love for one lucky boy.
“Sekaran has written a page-turner that’s touching and all too real.”—People
“Heart-rending and heartwarming….There’s something for everyone in this wonderful novel.”—Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, AND LIBRARY JOURNAL
In this astonishing novel, Shanthi Sekaran gives voice to the devotion and anguish of motherhood through two women bound together by their love for one boy. Soli, a young undocumented Mexican woman in Berkeley, CA, finds that motherhood offers her an identity in a world where she's otherwise invisible. When she is placed in immigrant detention, her son comes under the care of Kavya, an Indian-American wife overwhelmed by her own impossible desire to have a child. As Soli fights for her son, Kavya builds her love on a fault line, her heart wrapped around someone else's child. Exploring the ways in which dreams and determination can reshape a family, Sekaran transforms real life into a thing of beauty. From rural Oaxaca to Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto to the dreamscapes of Silicon Valley, Lucky Boy offers a moving and revelatory look at the evolving landscape of the American dream and the ever-changing borders of love.
Shanthi Sekaran teaches creative writing at California College of the Arts, and is a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. She is the author of The Prayer Room and her work has appeared in the New York Times, Best New American Voices, and Canteen, as well as online at Zyzzyva and Mutha Magazine. A California native, she lives in Berkeley with her husband and two children. Lucky Boy is her second novel.
Praise for Lucky Boy
“Sekaran has written a page-turner that’s touching and all too real.”—People
“Offers a brilliantly agonizing setup...[An] exceptional novel.”—The New York Times
“Pulses with vitality, pumped with the life breath of human sin and love.”—USA Today
“Topical and timely...Sekaran’s book invites the reader to engage empathetically with thorny geopolitical issues that feel organic and fully inhabited by her finely rendered characters.”—Chicago Tribune
“With wit, empathy and a page-turning plot, the novel stirs ethical questions...that the author rightly refuses to answer. Sekaran has written a tender, artful story of the bravery of loving in the face of certain grief.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“A fiercely compassionate story about the bonds and the bounds of motherhood and, ultimately, of love.”—Cristina Henríquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans
“Richly emotional.”—Good Housekeeping
“Like M.L. Stedman in The Light Between Oceans, Sekaran presents a complex moral dilemma that leaves readers incapable of choosing sides...A must read.”—BookPage
“Deeply compassionate...Delivers penetrating insights into the intangibles of motherhood and indeed, all humanity.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Both timely and timeless, depicting the comedy and delights of the world as well as its brutalities and injustices.”—Edan Lepucki, author of California
“A moving story.”—InStyle
“Heartbreaking and timely...Explores motherhood and lengths we will go to in order to achieve our dreams.”—Real Simple
“Will leave you spellbound.”—Bustle
“Sekaran is a master of drawing detailed, richly layered characters and relationships; here are the subtly nuanced lines of love and expectation between parents and children; here, too are moments of great depth and insight.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A heartfelt and moving novel that challenges our notions of motherhood and the true meaning of home.”—Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans
“[H]umanizes current discussions of immigration, privilege, and what it means to be an American...Would be a strong choice for book clubs.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“There are few easy solutions to life’s toughest problems, but Lucky Boy goes a long way toward putting a humanizing face on them.”—ShelfAwareness
“A gripping, obsessive, character-driven narrative of sacrifice and identity—where the lives of two women become forever tangled in the roots of motherhood.”—Simon Van Booy, author of The Illusion of Separateness
“You'll have a hard time putting down this book, and when you finish it, you'll have a hard time not thinking, and aching, about it for a long, long time.”—Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, author of Barefoot Dogs
