The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life by

Description: The Far Away Brothers by Lauren Markham The deeply reported story of identical twin brothers who escape El Salvadors violence to build new lives in California—fighting to survive, to stay, and to belong.Growing up in rural El Salvador in the wake of the civil war, the United States was a distant fantasy to identical twins Ernesto and Raul Flores—until, at age seventeen, a deadly threat from the regions brutal gangs forces them to flee the only home theyve ever known. In this urgent chronicle of contemporary immigration, journalist Lauren Markham follows the Flores twins as they make their way across the Rio Grande and the Texas desert, into the hands of immigration authorities, and from there to their estranged older brother in Oakland, CA. Soon these unaccompanied minors are navigating school in a new language, working to pay down their mounting coyote debt, and facing their day in immigration court, while also encountering the triumphs and pitfalls of teenage life with only each other for support. With intimate access and breathtaking range, Markham offers an unforgettable testament to the migrant experience.NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW | WINNER OF THE RIDENHOUR BOOK PRIZE | SILVER WINNER OF THE CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARD | FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE | SHORTLISTED FOR THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS BOOK PRIZE | LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/BOGRAD WELD PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Lauren Markham is a writer based in Berkeley, California. Her work has appeared in VQR, VICE, Orion, Pacific Standard, Guernica, The New Yorker.com, on This American Life, and elsewhere. Lauren earned her MFA in Fiction Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has been awarded Fellowships from the Middlebury Fellowship in Environmental Journalism, the 11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship, the Mesa Refuge, and the Rotary Foundation. For the past decade, she has worked in the fields of refugee resettlement and immigrant education. Review "The Far Away Brothers is impeccably timed, intimately reported and beautifully expressed. Markham brings people and places to rumbling life; she has that rare ability to recreate elusive, subjective experiences—whether theyre scenes she never witnessed or her characters interior psychological states—without taking undue liberties. In many ways, her book is reminiscent of Adrian Nicole LeBlancs Random Family. Its about teenagers who raise themselves."—Jennifer Senior, The New York Times"This is the sort of news that is the opposite of fake…Markham is our knowing, compassionate ally, our guide in sorting out, up close, how our new national immigration policy is playing out from a human perspective...An important book."—The Minneapolis Star Tribune"An indelible picture...of one imperfect family driven apart and astray—not by inequality or lax enforcement, but by the humanitarian crisis of gang warfare."—Vulture"Painstakingly reported…A compassionate look at the lives of two young men and the family they left behind when they were seventeen years old…[This] book could not have come at a more relevant time." —Mother Jones"Markham recreates each step of the story in rich detail...Powerful." —Pacific Standard"Deserves a place alongside the strongest in the genre....By the books end, its impossible to not be rooting for [the Flores brothers]. The books true victory, however, is in its insights into how the gang crisis in El Salvador and neighboring countries is impacting individual lives—and what lengths these individuals will go to, in chillingly descriptive detail, to persevere." —PopMatters"Lauren Markham understands the complexities of immigration to the United States...Compelling." —Sojourner"Excellent...a clear-eyed look at what many [immigrants] actually experience." —The Mercury News"Markham functions as an empathetic intermediary amid ordinary and extraordinary struggles. She is implicated in the boys search for a livable life, but her closeness to the situation does not impede her analysis....The Far Away Brothers...tell[s] a story of courage and failure, tenacity and loss, loyalty and fumbling steps into an unknown future." —The Christian Century"Timely and thought-provoking…Markham provides a sensitive and eye-opening take on whats at stake for young immigrants with nowhere else to go."—Publishers Weekly"Powerful…Focusing primarily on one familys struggle to survive in violence-riddled El Salvador by sending some of its members illegally to the U.S.,...[this] compellingly intimate narrative…keenly examines the plights of juveniles sent to America without adult supervision….One of the most searing books on illegal immigration since Sonia Nazarios Enriques Journey." —Kirkus [starred review]"A stark examination of youth migration and the extreme risks taken to access a better life....Markham questions the accessibility of the American dream while compassionately narrating RaÚl and Ernestos experiences." —Booklist"An affecting and personal look into the experiences of minor migrants." —Library Journal"This brilliantly reported book goes so deeply into the lives of its protagonists and is so beautifully, movingly written it has some of the pleasures of a novel—but all the force of bitter truth, the truth about the lives of unaccompanied minors in the USA, about poverty, the ricocheting wars here and there, and the caprices and brutalities of immigration policy. Anyone who wants to understand more deeply how we got here and why we need to keep going until we get someplace better should dive into this book." —Rebecca Solnit, author of The Mother of All Questions"Beautifully written, The Far Away Brothers examines the claustrophobic space between grinding poverty and brutal gang violence that drives so many children from El Salvador to make the dangerous journey North. Lauren Markham applies the eye of an artist to the dogged reporting of an investigative journalist. What a fine and timely book!" —Ted Koppel, author of Lights Out"In the midst of a contentious debate in which reality is too often bent or ruptured entirely, The Far Away Brothers is a necessary book. But it is so much more than just that. Told with elegant detail, profound compassion, and painful truth, you will come out of this story with so much knowledge and, more importantly, understanding—of immigrants and also of youth. Lauren Markham has written this book in a hard and noble way, depicting the Flores brothers not only as representatives of a vital issue, but as human beings: complicated, special, humorous, and flawed. You need to meet these young men." —Jeff Hobbs, author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace"A twenty-first century odyssey, The Far Away Brothers will take readers to unimaginable places, mapped and unmapped, in heart and mind as well as on the earths surface. This is one of the finest accounts ever written of the plight of unaccompanied migrant children, full of insight and empathy, and as gripping a tale as one might hope to find in a masterful suspense novel. By making the Flores twins come alive, Lauren Markham puts flesh and bone on one of the most shadowy yet most pressing crises of our day and age." —Carlos Eire, author of Waiting for Snow in Havana and Learning to Die in Miami"Lauren Markham has written a modern day epic with The Far Away Brothers. It is a wonderfully unfolding, intimate portrait of family and the dangers people are still willing to risk for a simple chance at a better life. Markhams writing reads like the best of fiction out there, and yet... remember, this happened to real people. This is the sort of book youll be thinking about at night." —Domingo Martinez, author of The Boy Kings of Texas"The most moving revelation of this book comes not from the geo-political lessons we learn, the path of the brothers through the desert, or the obstacles they face in U.S. courts—rather, its the insight into how that journey affects them, plaguing them with anxiety and guilt but also inspiring hope, ambition, and responsibility. From a lesser writer this would be a simple migration story, but thanks to Markhams relentless reporting and care, it becomes a deeply relatable tale of human transformation—messy, stumbling, and bursting with optimism."—Laura Tillman, author of The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts"Once youve read this remarkable reporting, immigration will never be an abstract or airless debate for you again. Its hard to imagine a more timely or more valuable volume." —Bill McKibben, author of Radio Free Vermont Review Quote A Fall 2017 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection " The Far Away Brothers is impeccably timed, intimately reported and beautifully expressed. Markham brings people and places to rumbling life; she has that rare ability to recreate elusive, subjective experiences--whether theyre scenes she never witnessed or her characters interior psychological states--without taking undue liberties. In many ways, her book is reminiscent of Adrian Nicole LeBlancs Random Family . Its about teenagers who raise themselves." --Jennifer Senior, The New York Times "You should read The Far Away Brothers . We all should." -- NPR "This is the sort of news that is the opposite of fake...Markham is our knowing, compassionate ally, our guide in sorting out, up close, how our new national immigration policy is playing out from a human perspective...An important book." -- The Minneapolis Star Tribune "An indelible picture...of one imperfect family driven apart and astray -- not by inequality or lax enforcement, but by the humanitarian crisis of gang warfare." -- Vulture "Painstakingly reported...A compassionate look at the lives of two young men and the family they left behind when they were seventeen years old...[This] book could not have come at a more relevant time." -- Mother Jones "Markham recreates each step of the story in rich detail...Powerful." -- Pacific Standard "Deserves a place alongside the strongest in the genre....By the books end, its impossible to not be rooting for [the Flores brothers]. The books true victory, however, is in its insights into how the gang crisis in El Salvador and neighboring countries is impacting individual lives--and what lengths these individuals will go to, in chillingly descriptive detail, to persevere." -- PopMatters "Lauren Markham understands the complexities of immigration to the United States...Compelling." -- Sojourner "Excellent...a clear-eyed look at what many [immigrants] actually experience." -- The Mercury News "Markham functions as an empathetic intermediary amid ordinary and extraordinary struggles. She is implicated in the boys search for a livable life, but her closeness to the situation does not impede her analysis.... The Far Away Brothers ...tell[s] a story of courage and failure, tenacity and loss, loyalty and fumbling steps into an unknown future." -- The Christian Century "Timely and thought-provoking...Markham provides a sensitive and eye-opening take on whats at stake for young immigrants with nowhere else to go." -- Publishers Weekly "Powerful...Focusing primarily on one familys struggle to survive in violence-riddled El Salvador by sending some of its members illegally to the U.S.,...[this] compellingly intimate narrative...keenly examines the plights of juveniles sent to America without adult supervision....One of the most searing books on illegal immigration since Sonia Nazarios Enriques Journey ." -- Kirkus [starred review] "A stark examination of youth migration and the extreme risks taken to access a better life....Markham questions the accessibility of the American dream while compassionately narrating Ral and Ernestos experiences." -- Booklist "An affecting and personal look into the experiences of minor migrants." -- Library Journal "This brilliantly reported book goes so deeply into the lives of its protagonists and is so beautifully, movingly written it has some of the pleasures of a novel--but all the force of bitter truth, the truth about the lives of unaccompanied minors in the USA, about poverty, the ricocheting wars here and there, and the caprices and brutalities of immigration policy. Anyone who wants to understand more deeply how we got here and why we need to keep going until we get someplace better should dive into this book." --Rebecca Solnit, author of The Mother of All Questions "Beautifully written, The Far Away Brothers examines the claustrophobic space between grinding poverty and brutal gang violence that drives so many children from El Salvador to make the dangerous journey North. Lauren Markham applies the eye of an artist to the dogged reporting of an investigative journalist. What a fine and timely book!" --Ted Koppel, author of Lights Out "In the midst of a contentious debate in which reality is too often bent or ruptured entirely, The Far Away Brothers is a necessary book. But it is so much more than just that. Told with elegant detail, profound compassion, and painful truth, you will come out of this story with so much knowledge and, more importantly, understanding--of immigrants and also of youth. Lauren Markham has written this book in a hard and noble way, depicting the Flores brothers not only as representatives of a vital issue, but as human beings: complicated, special, humorous, and flawed. You need to meet these young men." --Jeff Hobbs, author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace "A twenty-first century odyssey, The Far Away Brothers will take readers to unimaginable places, mapped and unmapped, in heart and mind as well as on the earths surface. This is one of the finest accounts ever written of the plight of unaccompanied migrant children, full of insight and empathy, and as gripping a tale as one might hope to find in a masterful suspense novel. By making the Flores twins come alive, Lauren Markham puts flesh and bone on one of the most shadowy yet most pressing crises of our day and age." --Carlos Eire, author of Waiting for Snow in Havana and Learning to Die in Miami "Lauren Markham has written a modern day epic with The Far Away Brothers . It is a wonderfully unfolding, intimate portrait of family and the dangers people are still willing to risk for a simple chance at a better life. Markhams writing reads like the best of fiction out there, and yet... remember, this happened to real people. This is the sort of book youll be thinking about at night." --Domingo Martinez, author of The Boy Kings of Texas "The most moving revelation of this book comes not from the geo-political lessons we learn, the path of the brothers through the desert, or the obstacles they face in U.S. courts--rather, its the insight into how that journey affects them, plaguing them with anxiety and guilt but also inspiring hope, ambition, and responsibility. From a lesser writer this would be a simple migration story, but thanks to Markhams relentless reporting and care, it becomes a deeply relatable tale of human transformation--messy, stumbling, and bursting with optimism." --Laura Tillman, author of The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts "Once youve read this remarkable reporting, immigration will never be an abstract or airless debate for you again. Its hard to imagine a more timely or more valuable volume." --Bill McKibben, author of Radio Free Vermont Excerpt from Book Authors Note In the winter of 2013, I received an assignment from the Virginia Quarterly Review (VQR) to travel to South Texas and write about the recent uptick in immigration by unaccompanied minors and what happened to them once theyd made it into the United States. These were children, mostly from Central America, who had crossed the border without papers or parents. I spent that spring reporting the story, digging into the massive infrastructure of apprehending, detaining, caring for, and litigating the cases of these thousands of young migrants who, that year, more than tripled their historical annual average. The article, "First the Fence, Then the System," came out that June. Since 2006, Id been working with refugees and immigrants in Oakland, California, at various nonprofit agencies and then the Oakland school district. In 2011 I started working at Oakland International High School, a school for newly arrived English-language learners, where I coordinated programs for students and families, such as parent classes, after-school programs, and health and mental health services. Our school had enrolled a few unaccompanied minors over the years, but I understood little about their circumstances and even less about their experiences navigating the immigration system. In the VQR story, I had focused on the children who were caught, but I soon found myself chasing another story: what happened to the children who werent caught? My story on the growing number of unaccompanied minors working in the California agricultural system, "The Lost Boys of California," was published in VICE in March 2014. Just as I was filing the first draft, Mr. David, a co-worker at Oakland International, came into my office to tell me that "we really need to do something about all the kids with upcoming court dates." What? He explained that a number of our new ninth and tenth graders had been ordered to appear in immigration court in the coming months. The students, who were undocumented and had been apprehended by the authorities after crossing the U.S. border, were almost universally unaccompanied minors, or "unaccompanied alien children." They had all been ordered deported and would have to fight in court for the right to stay. They were terrified of court; none of the students David had spoken to had a lawyer. Of the twenty-five or so students he advised, seven were unaccompanied minors. While I had been away reporting on the issue outside Oakland, this population had been surging at my school, the place where I spent four days a week, right under my nose. By spring of 2014, more than sixty unaccompanied minors had enrolled at Oakland International High School, out of a student body of just under four hundred. By the following fall, the number surpassed ninety. In 2017, unaccompanied minors make up over a quarter of Oakland Internationals student population. After my conversation with David, I spent many an afternoon shepherding kids to pro bono legal agencies and court dates and setting up intake appointments and "know your rights" information sessions at the school. The students needed counseling and tutoring and doctors appointments; some of them needed help finding homeless shelters and access to food and clothing. Supporting unaccompanied minors quickly became one of my primary responsibilities. In February 2014, I met the Flores twins. (To protect the anonymity of the "Flores" family, I have changed their names and those of many others who appear in this book, as well as the name of their hometown.) They told me why they had come, but I had so many more questions. What were these children really risking--and enduring--to come here, and what was the likelihood they would gain the right to stay? Would they really be better off if they did? Were the stories I was hearing overblown, and could I take their reasons for coming to the United States at face value? Answering these questions became a personal imperative, one that would help me better understand my students, my country, and the endless churn of southern migration into the United States. To learn more about the Flores familys story, and that of the hundreds of thousands of migrants like them, I traveled to El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, and Texas, reporting from various fulcrums of violence in El Salvador as well as at stations along the migrant trail north. Parts of this book I witnessed myself, and other parts have been reconstructed through extensive reporting and interviews, all in service of investigating the changing dynamics of migration. Since reporting that first article for VQR , I have heard countless stories from young people traveling alone to reach the United States. Every story is different, but there are also striking similarities, often having to do with mounting violence in the childrens home countries. These girls and boys are crossing into the United States in search of the fabled "better life" that has attracted migrants, authorized and unauthorized, since before the Mayflower landed. But in the Northern Triangle--Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador--a "better life," for many, means a life where they are not afraid of being killed. I began reporting this book during the Obama administration, a time rife with anxiety for undocumented migrants. It was completed after the election of Donald Trump, marking an era of unprecedented fear among immigrants and refugees past and present. In a time when immigration is in the daily headlines yet is too often reduced to a matter of binary politics--keep them out or let them in, wall or no wall--this book seeks to offer a complex understanding of why immigrants leave their country, what struggles they endure to get here, and the challenges they face setting roots in a foreign land. The story of the Flores twins isnt the most harrowing, or the most unjust, or the most extraordinary Ive come across as an educator and a journalist--far from it. But something in their story illustrates, roundly and heartbreakingly, the wounds of war, the spirit of a new generation of immigrants, and the impact of migration on the United States as well as on the tiny, time-battered country of El Salvador. The United States is still young and is ever reiterating itself as demanded by its people, both those who have lived here for a long time and those who have just arrived. Immigrants have always shaped our countrys future. Young Central Americans are coming here in unprecedented numbers, and how they are or are not received and supported will determine, in part, the next chapter in the American story. "For a child to choose to make that journey," an advocate told me during my first trip to South Texas, "theres a reason." Since 2012, hundreds of thousands of minors, paperless and parentless, have crossed into the United States. "Why are they coming, and why so many?" I wrote in my first piece on unaccompanied minors. It was an earnest question. Every answer raised another question, and the result is this book. It is about who these young men and women are, where they come from, the choices theyve made, and what their stories reveal about who we are as a country, and what we will, or might, become. Chapter 1 "You boys from eighteen?" one of the young men said, pointing his gun toward the retaining wall marked by a small graffito tag: barrio 18. It was 2008. The Flores twins, twelve, were playing poker on the town soccer field with their older brother and six friends when the pickup pulled up. Ten or so guys stood in the truck bed brandishing guns and machetes, sporting hip-hop clothes and tattoos. They were MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, the twins knew--members of the gang that was then slinking into the small town of La Colonia. The Flores boys and their friends were high on adrenaline from having won a big soccer match that morning, a feeling that mixed nicely with the bravado of early adolescence. But the sight of the armed men scared them silent. They shook their heads no. "I asked you a question!" barked the guy in the truck. Ernestos gaze was lowered, but he could feel the men staring down at him. "I asked if you f***ers were from eighteen!" the man shouted. At that, one of their friends took off running into the woods. Suddenly-- they couldnt remember who moved first--the twins were sprinting through the forest that flanked the town soccer field, Ernesto first, Ra Details ISBN1101906200 Author Lauren Markham Short Title FAR AWAY BROTHERS Pages 320 Language English ISBN-10 1101906200 ISBN-13 9781101906200 Format Paperback DEWEY 305.86872840 Year 2018 Publication Date 2018-05-22 Subtitle Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2018-05-22 NZ Release Date 2018-05-22 US Release Date 2018-05-22 UK Release Date 2018-05-22 Publisher Crown Publishing Group (NY) Imprint Crown Publishing Group Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:125147941;

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