I find it so hard to review books that I very much admired but didn’t really love. This is a very ambitious book that mixes media and relies heavily on intertextuality to create a story that is (and isn’t) focused on displacement, migration and voicelessness. I know that ‘timely’ is a bit of a book marketing buzz word but it’s a very accurate summary of a book framed by the current migration crisis in the USA.

A mother, father and their two children undergo a journey from New York to Arizona, understanding that their end destination will also mark the end of their cobbled together family unit. Overlaying this main narrative are the tales of ‘lost’ Apache tribes (one of the main critiques of the book appears to be the treatment of Native American voices as ‘lost’) and of children crossing the border from Central and Southern America seeking reunion with family or simply a better life.

There is a lot to admire here and it’s certainly very intelligently written but, for me personally, the abstract nature of the story got a little in the way of the overall impact. There were moments when I felt the full force of her brilliance but also moments that just fell a little bit flat and overall, it felt like a little bit of a chore to muddle through (I suppose a little like the monotony of a very long, motel littered road trip). Regardless, still very glad I read it and think that it’s inclusion on the Man Booker long-list is well deserved.