The Other Americans: A Novel [J0393]

2020 PB in nice clean condition. Timely, riveting, and unforgettable, The Other Americans is at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture. Winner of the Arab American Book Award in Fiction Finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Fiction. Finalist for the California Book Award. Longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize A Los Angeles Times bestseller. Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Time, NPR, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Dallas Morning News, The Guardian, Variety, and Kirkus Reviews.

Late one spring night in California, Driss Guerraoui-father, husband, business owner, Moroccan immigrant-is hit and killed by a speeding car. The aftermath of his death brings together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui's daughter Nora, a jazz composer returning to the small town in the Mojave she thought she'd left for good; her mother, Maryam, who still pines for her life in the old country; Efraín, an undocumented witness whose fear of deportation prevents him from coming forward; Jeremy, an old friend of Nora's and an Iraqi War veteran; Coleman, a detective who is slowly discovering her son's secrets; Anderson, a neighbor trying to reconnect with his family; and the murdered man himself. As the characters-deeply divided by race, religion, and class-tell their stories, each in their own voice, connections among them emerge. Driss's family confronts its secrets, a town faces its hypocrisies, and love-messy and unpredictable-is born.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "I enjoyed the look into the different experiences of different types of Americans and could definitely relate to the immigrant experience in many ways"; "She writes well and illuminates the experiences of an Arab American family, from why they immigrated to the US to their struggles and successes here. She also writes in a way that grounds her novel solidly in the desert, there is never a sense that this novel could have taken place anywhere. She also manages to write compassionately from the point of view of characters it would be far easier to paint as solely villains."; "Everything I love about books this book contains: told from first person, lots of povs, about immigrants and racism. Really well written and a quick read."