A Filipino teenager tries to live a normal adolescence in the United States, a goal that is complicated by his status as an undocumented immigrant and his mother's unusual livelihood: A former B-movie star in the Philippines, Maxima now makes her living scamming men online.
... offers another fierce, revelatory literary experience ... In a riff on the conventional immigrant novel – which features bicultural protagonists tied to two countries, departed and arrived – Tenorio adds a clever twist by creating a citizen of nowhere: Excel is always in limbo, both legally and figuratively ... Tenorio has written a resonant story about what one family is willing to do to 'protect the child.' It’s seamlessly interwoven with cogent explorations of hybrid identity, racism, immigration history, shifting familial bonds, parental sacrifice, socioeconomic disparity, and even alternative social models ... The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the Trump administration could not rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy on an accelerated schedule, bringing DREAMers back into headlines. That attention should give Tenorio’s affecting novel a well-deserved boost; he humanizes the lives imperiled by shifting immigration policies.
The Son of Good Fortune is not overtly political, remaining vague about the pressures the U.S. government puts on people like Excel and Maxima. Tenorio’s insistence on the specificity of his characters’ dreams and longings is its own kind of argument for their right to be here. The women in this book—Maxima, Sab, Maxima’s friend Roxy—are by the far the strongest and most compelling characters. And compared to his mother’s online scheming, Excel’s digital and real-life naïveté sometimes feel unconvincing, as though we’re meant to believe that hermetic disconnectedness is a form of self-protection. Still, Tenorio finds a way for Excel to exercise his own kind of nonconfrontational power ... Ultimately Tenorio’s novel is an affecting portrayal of just how potently a parent can shape the expectations of her child.
... sharp and compassionate ... Tenorio is a gifted, expressive writer about the Filipino American diaspora...With the novel’s wider canvas, he’s able to more deeply explore the moral challenges that being 'tago ng tago' presents for both Maxima and Excel ... Maxima’s racket drives the story to a tense climax, but Tenorio’s novel also delivers a powerful story about what it takes to uncover a sense of oneself when you've been forced to keep it under wraps.
