Join us on Wednesday, August, 12 at 6pm as we celebrate the launch of local Sherborn author Francisco X. Stork's latest young adult novel, Illegal.

Please purchase the book in advance and Francisco will be happy to sign and or personalize the book for you. We will automatically send you a link to join the virtual event.

 

Alternatively you can register for the event here, and you will be emailed a link to join the event. (Note for anyone who registers the day of the event, we will send out a last email with the link shortly before the event begins).

 

What does it mean to be illegal in the United States?

Life in Mexico is a death sentence for Emiliano and his sister Sara.

To escape the violent cartel that is after them, they flee across the border, seeking a better life in the United States and hoping that they can find a way to bring their pursuers to justice.

Sara turns herself over to the authorities to apply for asylum.

Emiliano enters the country illegally, planning to live with their father.

But now Sara is being held indefinitely in a detention facility, awaiting an asylum hearing that may never come, finding it harder every day to hold on to her faith and hope. Life for Emiliano is not easy either. Everywhere he goes, it's clear that he doesn't belong. And all the while, the cartel is closing in on them...

Emiliano sets off on a tense and dangerous race to find justice, but can he expose the web of crimes from his place in the shadows?

Award-winning author Francisco X. Stork's powerful follow-up to Disappeared delves with his usual sensitivity into the injustice that hides under the guise of the law in the United States. This is a timely and moving story that takes an unsparing look at the asylum process and the journey to find a new life in the US.

  

About Francisco

Francisco Xavier Arguelles was born in 1953 in Monterrey, Mexico. At Spring Hill College, Francisco majored in English Literature and Philosophy and received the college’s creative writing award. After college, a Danforth Fellowship (awarded to 40 college seniors out of approximately 5,000 applicants) allowed him to attend graduate school at Harvard University. At Harvard he studied Latin American Literature with people like Octavio Paz, the Mexican Nobel Laureate. However, the emphasis on scholarly research and writing seemed too remote and irrelevant to all that was important. So, after four years of Harvard, Francisco went to Columbia Law School. His plan was to make a living as a lawyer without abandoning his plan to write fiction. Twenty years and twelve or so legal jobs later, Francisco published his first novel. Francisco practiced law for thirty-three years in a variety of private and public venues. For the last fifteen years as a lawyer he worked at MassHousing, a state agency dedicated to financing affordable housing. He retired in 2015 and spends his time writing outside of Boston. Francisco is married to Jill Syverson-Stork. He is the father of Nicholas and Anna and the grandfather of four beautiful grandchildren.

For more about Francisco, you can visit franciscostork.com.