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    The Son of Good Fortune: A Novel
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    The Son of Good Fortune: A Novel
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    The Son of Good Fortune: A Novel
    Ebook299 pages5 hours

    The Son of Good Fortune: A Novel

    By Lysley Tenorio

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    A Recommended Book From:
    USA Today * The Chicago Tribune * Book Riot * Refinery 29 * InStyle *     The Minneapolis Star-Tribune * Publishers Weekly * Baltimore Outloud * Omnivoracious * Lambda Literary * Goodreads * Lit Hub * The Millions

    FINALIST FOR THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE
    WINNER OF THE NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD

    From award-winning author Lysley Tenorio, comes a big hearted debut novel following an undocumented Filipino son as he navigates his relationship with his mother, an uncertain future, and the place he calls home

    Excel spends his days trying to seem like an unremarkable American teenager. When he’s not working at The Pie Who Loved Me (a spy-themed pizza shop) or passing the time with his girlfriend Sab (occasionally in one of their town’s seventeen cemeteries), he carefully avoids the spotlight.

    But Excel knows that his family is far from normal. His mother, Maxima, was once a Filipina B-movie action star who now makes her living scamming men online. The old man they live with is not his grandfather, but Maxima’s lifelong martial arts trainer. And years ago, on Excel’s tenth birthday, Maxima revealed a secret that he must keep forever. “We are ‘TNT’—tago ng tago,” she told him, “hiding and hiding.” Excel is undocumented—and one accidental slip could uproot his entire life.

    Casting aside the paranoia and secrecy of his childhood, Excel takes a leap, joining Sab on a journey south to a ramshackle desert town called Hello City. Populated by drifters, old hippies, and washed-up techies—and existing outside the normal constructs of American society—Hello City offers Excel a chance to forge his own path for the first time. But after so many years of trying to be invisible, who does he want to become? And is it possible to put down roots in a country that has always considered you an outsider?

    Thrumming with energy and at once critical and hopeful, The Son of Good Fortune is a luminous story of a mother and son testing the strength of their bond to their country—and to each other.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJul 7, 2020
    ISBN9780062059611
    Author

    Lysley Tenorio

    Lysley Tenorio is the author of the novel The Son of Good Fortune and the story collection Monstress, named a book of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Whiting Award, a Stegner fellowship, and the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as residencies from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Bogliasco Foundation. His stories have appeared in the Atlantic, Zoetrope: All-Story, and Ploughshares, and have been adapted for the stage by The American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and the Ma-Yi Theater in New York City. He is a professor at Saint Mary’s College of California.

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    Reviews for The Son of Good Fortune

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      All Excel knows is how difficult it is being an undocumented American — “TNT” he calls it after the Filipino saying, “tago ng tago”. Hiding and hiding. His mother, Maxima, brought him to America for a better life, but neither of them thinks they’ve found it. The Son of Good Fortune by Lysley Tenorio, tells Excel’s story in a flashback and forth structure, and as we learn more about their struggles — both personal and financial — we understand their circumstances. Tenorio does an excellent job of revealing situations instead of explaining, and mixes in the Tagalog and Filipino culture with perfect finesse. The Son of Good Fortune is somewhat a coming-of -age story, but also a great look into undocumented American’s difficulties, and a mother/son tale. Highly recommended.
    • 2/5
      I was disappointed in the end of the book. Plus I really didn't get into it until I was about 80% done.Still, it's worth reading. If for no other reason than to gain perspective on life as a U.S. "citizen" minus the paperwork.I guess the lesson is that life is hard and we do what it takes to get by in this crazy world.
    • 4/5
      We “are TNT.” ‘tago ng tago’ “Hiding and hiding.”A good book, that kept my interest so high I read it in two days! I didn't always like Excel, the main charater, but the overall story was good! His mom getting money online from men through a dating site, his move to a desert "off the grid" city/commune, and his days at the spy version of a Chuck E. Cheese's pizza place - all very entertaining! All with the underlying problem/issue of he, and his mother, being 'TNT'! A very relevant issue, especially in the United States today. A real slice-of-life story about a mother and her son. I really liked it!
    • 5/5
      Focusing on Filipinos in the US, this book focuses on 19-year-old undocumented Excel (like the spreadsheet), and his tough as nails mother Maxima. Cutting back and forth in time, its not overtly political, but it does not take much reading between the lines to see the challenges the US immigration Program puts on people like Excel and Maxima. And as often is the case, it’s the women are the strongest and most formidable. Excel is nonconfrontational but yet he finds a way to help someone worse off them him. It is a book about the power of a parent to shape the future of her child.