Cassandra Campbell brings her full complement of narrating skills to this challenging and provocative audiobook. Her style suits the seriousness and frustrating action of this story of twin brothers who escape hardship and danger in El Salvador to make a new life as undocumented immigrants in Northern California. Campbell’s performance is both intelligent and understated. Even the dramatic scenes of the brothers’ harrowing travel with “coyotes” through Mexico and detainment in the U.S. by the border patrol are read evenly. Her transition from the narrator’s educated and informed tone to the twins’ patois works well. The audiobook’s long asides on immigration policy and how it affects the poor and desperate are handled gracefully. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

…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 they're scenes she never witnessed or her characters' interior psychological states—without taking undue liberties. In many ways, her book is reminiscent of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family…One of the finest virtues of The Far Away Brothers is that it makes vibrantly real an issue that some see only as theoretical, illuminating aspects of the immigrant experience normally hidden from view…Markham infuses her narrative with facts and figures and policy particulars without ever once getting tangled up in them.

07/10/2017
While working to assist young immigrants at an Oakland, Calif., school district, writer Markham encountered Raúl and Ernesto Flores from El Salvador, teenage twin brothers who, like many others in recent years, fled gang violence in Central America and came to the U.S. as unaccompanied minors. For the Flores brothers, home was La Colonia, an idyllic village until it was overrun by gangsters—among them the boys’ uncle, whose threats against Ernesto precipitated the twins’ emigration. Markham outlines the twins’ perilous journey to the U.S.: a long trek through the desert and a traumatizing violent incident. Once here, they had to navigate a labyrithine path to citizenship, beset by language barriers, difficulty securing legal counsel, and lack of funds, to say nothing of the emotional issues that caused the twins to fall into patterns of drinking and self-harm. In addition to the boys, Markham introduces the reader to their older brother Wilber, who acts as the boys’ guardian despite being only 24, and their sister Maricela, left behind in La Colonia to deal with an unplanned pregnancy and the family’s debt. Markham also visits a Mexican migrant shelter, the border wall in southern Texas, and an immigration courthouse to give further context. This is a timely and thought-provoking exploration of a international quagmire. Markham provides a sensitive and eye-opening take on what’s at stake for young immigrants with nowhere else to go. (Sept.)

"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 they’re scenes she never witnessed or her characters’ interior psychological states—without taking undue liberties. In many ways, her book is reminiscent of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family. It’s 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 book’s end, it’s impossible to not be rooting for [the Flores brothers]. The book’s 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 what’s at stake for young immigrants with nowhere else to go.”—Publishers Weekly

“Powerful…Focusing primarily on one family's 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 Nazario's Enrique's 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 Ernesto’s 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 earth’s 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. Markham's writing reads like the best of fiction out there, and yet... remember, this happened to real people. This is the sort of book you'll 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, it’s 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 Markham’s 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 you've read this remarkable reporting, 'immigration' will never be an abstract or airless debate for you again. It's hard to imagine a more timely or more valuable volume." —Bill McKibben, author of Radio Free Vermont

10/01/2017
Markham (Virginia Quarterly Review) recounts the experiences of twin brothers Ernesto and Raúl Flores, who fled El Salvador at age 17. The author candidly discusses their lives in their home country as they negotiated poverty, violence, and limited possibilities. After their uncle threatens them, the Flores family takes out a massive loan to hire a coyote to transport the twins to the United States. The Flores boys endure hardship and uncertainty during their travels, only to be apprehended after crossing the border. Owing to their status as unaccompanied minors, they are allowed to stay in the country while awaiting deportation proceedings. Markham describes the stress and uncertainty as they navigate a new country and new language. Their experience is contrasted with that of their sister Maricela, who still lives in El Salvador. Markham also intersperses background chapters that provide a larger picture of the migrant crisis and finishes by calling for the United States to claim responsibility for their role in creating the Central American migrant crisis and to address the problem humanely. VERDICT An affecting and personal look into the experiences of minor migrants.—Rebekah Kati, Durham, NC

Cassandra Campbell brings her full complement of narrating skills to this challenging and provocative audiobook. Her style suits the seriousness and frustrating action of this story of twin brothers who escape hardship and danger in El Salvador to make a new life as undocumented immigrants in Northern California. Campbell’s performance is both intelligent and understated. Even the dramatic scenes of the brothers’ harrowing travel with “coyotes” through Mexico and detainment in the U.S. by the border patrol are read evenly. Her transition from the narrator’s educated and informed tone to the twins’ patois works well. The audiobook’s long asides on immigration policy and how it affects the poor and desperate are handled gracefully. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

★ 2017-06-14
Markham relies on her roles as a journalist and a worker in the realm of refugee resettlement and immigrant education to craft a powerful narrative about an experience that plays out every day in the United States.Focusing primarily on one family's struggle to survive in violence-riddled El Salvador by sending some of its members illegally to the U.S., the author never loses sight of the big-picture issues regarding immigration. Throughout, she inserts brief chapters about those concerns in a compellingly intimate narrative about the Flores family. Markham keenly examines the plights of juveniles sent to America without adult supervision, a large, constantly growing contingent that includes twins Ernesto and Raúl Flores, who sought to escape their hometown because they feared for their lives among the rampant gang violence plaguing their country. Knowing almost nothing about the U.S., the Flores twins lacked both money for their journey and any marketable job skills, and they spoke no English. Their journey was harrowing, to say the least (spoilers omitted), and their transition to life in the U.S., mostly in Oakland, continues, raising new difficulties each day. As they have tried to balance their minimum-wage restaurant jobs with education, the schooling has suffered. Meanwhile, their parents and most of their siblings continue to live in highly dangerous circumstances in El Salvador. Markham met the twins in her job as a counselor at a public high school with a heavy influx of juvenile refugees without documentation, and her experience in that role informs the eye-opening narrative. Most of the book takes place before the election of Donald Trump, but it's clear that the policies of the new administration will make the lives of the Flores twins and countless others even more terrifying. One of the most searing books on illegal immigration since Sonia Nazario's Enrique's Journey (2006).