The Son of Good Fortune: Lysley Tenorio with Daniel Handler

Co-presented by Philippine American Writers and Artists and KALW 91.7FM
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 17 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.
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. In conversation with Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, whose most recent book is the novel Bottle Grove.
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