Harare Review of Books

350 pages.

First published May 7, 2024 (Dalkey Archive Press).

Fiction.

Painful, unsettling, disorienting.

I wanted to like this book so much more. But I really did not like the form—or, more accurately, style. But then, rather obtusely, I think it was perfect for the novel: the reader is supposed to be disorientated, just as these characters are.

I like that it’s set in a dystopian near future where surveillance has intensified, the state has endless power, and migrants can be deported regardless of their “legal” status—because all of this feels very plausible, very much like the direction the US is taking (or has taken already). That’s the tremendous power of this novel for me: American Abductions rings completely true.

And American Abductions is heartbreaking, and gives voice to the people—not just “migrants”, but people—who are at the receiving end of the cruelty of deportation (abduction!), of separated families, of small children removed from their parents. And it tells their stories after the cameras have been turned off and the headlines have moved on, even after reunions. The lingering trauma, and distrust, and pain. The broken lives, the attempts to patch things back together.

All of this makes me glad I powered through the novel, in spite of my struggles with the style; I want to know these stories, to bear witness. And because the feelings the novel provoked—outrage, empathy, compassion—have stayed with me long after I put the book down, I know that American Abductions is good, and important—perhaps not in spite of my ambivalence towards it, but because I have those feelings regardless.

Many thanks to Dalkey Archive Press and to Edelweiss for early access.