Text in English; some text in Spanish. Includes bibliographical references. Sebastiâan lived a childhood of privilege in Mexico City. Now in his twenties, he has a degree from Yale, an American girlfriend, and a slot in the University of Iowa's MFA program. But Sebastiâan's life is shaken by the Trump administration's restrictions on immigrants, his mother's terminal cancer, the cracks in his relationship with his American girlfriend, and his father's forced resignation at the hands of Mexico's new president. As he struggles through the Trump and Lâopez Obrador years, Sebastiâan must confront his father's role in the Mexican drug war and his whiteness in Mexican contexts even as he is often perceived as a person of color in the US. As he does so, the novel moves through centuries of Mexican literary history, from the 17th century letters of a peevishly polymathic Spanish colonizer to the contemporary packaging of Mexican writers for a US audience. Split between the US and Mexico, this stunning debut explores whiteness, power, immigration, and the history of Mexican literature, to wrestle with the contradictory relationship between two countries bound by geography and torn apart by politics.

1. Mexicans -- United States -- Fiction.; 2. Immigrants -- United States -- Fiction.; 3. Fathers and sons -- Fiction.; 4. Racially mixed people -- Race identity -- Fiction.; 5. United States -- Politics and government -- 2009-2017 -- Fiction.; 6. Mexico -- Politics and government -- 21st century -- Fiction.; 7. Political fiction.; 8. Mexican fiction.;