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Sign up todayA Country You Can Leave
A Novel
Narrator
Amanda Cordner
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Length
9 hours 12 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“Engrossing and original! Angel-Ajani, herself agrees that it's hard to answer the question, "What is this book about?" It's so many things, and it works! The prose is breathtaking, and the characters are complicated. Lara is the biracial daughter of an absentee Afro-Cuban father and a Russian mother. Lara is easy to love. Her single mom, Yvengia - not so much, yet there are things to admire. An unexpected layer to Yvengia is that she's an intellectual, and books are her everything. It's a creative theme throughout the book...Sense of place plays a significant role in this story about preconceived perceptions, false judgments, and family. This book made me wish I could be a student again to discuss it and write a book report on it! I didn't want it to end! ”
— Andrea • Main Street Books Davidson
"From page one, A Country You Can Leave is a riveting, exasperating, and deeply heartbreaking tale of mother-daughter strife and resilience." —Xochitl Gonzalez, author of Olga Dies Dreaming
A stunning debut novel following the turbulent relationship of a Black, biracial teen and her ferocious Russian mother, struggling to survive in the California desert.
When sixteen-year-old Lara and her fiery mother, Yevgenia, find themselves homeless again, the misnamed Oasis Mobile Estates is all they can afford. In this new community, where residents are down on their luck but rich in humor and escape plans, Lara navigates what it means to be the Black, biracial daughter of a Russian mother and begins to wonder what a life beyond Yevgenia’s orbit—insistence on reading only the right kind of books (Russian), having the right kind of relationships (casual, with lots of sex)—might look like.
Lara knows that something else lies beneath her mother’s fierce, independent spirit, but Yevgenia doesn't believe in sharing, least of all with her daughter. When a brutal attack exposes the cracks in their relationship, Lara and Yevgenia are forced to confront the family legacy of violence and the strain of inherited trauma on the bonds of their love.
A Country You Can Leave is a dazzling, sharp-witted story, suffused with yearning, as Lara and Yevgenia attempt to forge their own identities and thrive in a hostile land. Compelling and empathetic, wry and intimate, Asale Angel-Ajani's unforgettable debut novel examines the beauty and dangers of womanhood in multiracial America.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Asale Angel-Ajani is a writer and Professor at The City College of New York. She’s the author of the nonfiction books Strange Trade: The Story of Two Women Who Risked Everything in the International Drug Trade and Intimate: Essays on Racial Terror. She has held residencies at Millay, Djerassi, and Playa, and is an alum of VONA and Tin House. A Country You Can Leave is her first novel.
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Reviews
"[A] piercing debut novel . . . In perceptive prose and wry dialogue, Angel-Ajani brings to life a mother and daughter trapped by their circumstances. This is exemplary."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A tour de force of character, and a captivating story to match. Vivid, tender and unflinching, I loved this journey. "
—Ann-Marie MacDonald, author of Fayne
“A Country You Can Leave is an enthralling and heartfelt novel. In this striking debut, Asale Angel-Ajani’s phenomenal skills shine on every page. This book will leave you profoundly moved and feeling like you better understand the word loneliness.”
—Sarah Jackson, author of A Bit Much
“A Country You Can Leave shattered me with its pain and sweetness. At its heart are a mother and daughter like none I’ve read before, each striving for selfhood in a world that seems bent on crushing them. It’s rare to encounter a debut so fearless and insightful and truly new, but here is Asale Angel-Ajani to show us what’s possible in the landscape of American fiction.”
—Tania James, author of The Tusk That Did the Damage
"A journey through the California everyone should know, a place America needs to see, a world of desperation and beauty, collaboration and redemption. In the best tradition of fiercely perceptive daughters fighting to survive dangerous lives, from Betty Smith to Janet Fitch to Helena Maria Viramontes, the debut of Asale Angel-Ajani was ever surprising, a novel I read in one day."
—Susan Straight, author of Mecca
"From page one, A Country You Can Leave is a riveting, exasperating, and deeply heartbreaking tale of mother-daughter strife and resilience. Asale Angel-Ajani is an explosive talent and her story of Afro-Cuban Lara coming of age in a ruthless headlock with her survivalist Russian mother, Yevgenia, will disintegrate your strong-held emotional walls, down to her very last act of resistance."
—Xochitl Gonzalez, author of Olga Dies Dreaming
"Refined and raw, cosmopolitan and claustrophobic, A Country You Can Leave is a novel of contrasts, built around a mother and daughter who see themselves as nothing alike. Asale Angel-Ajani portrays the complexity of the whole world through this one core relationship. Her debut is as loving as it is demanding, as vulnerable as it is merciless, and its complications will break your heart."
—Julia Phillips , author of Disappearing Earth
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