Well, that was different. A Good American is, at its heart, a story about a family who immigrates to America before World War I and how successive generations handle life, love, and what comes after. It strongly reminded me of the film, Fried Green Tomatoes, because of the family drama and some of the subject matter. This is an epic tale. Parts of it, I loved. Other parts… I could have lived my life without reading.
I loved Frederick’s attitude towards his new country. It’s exactly what I imagine my great-great grandfather was like when he came over from Poland. “…Frederick loved America. He loved its big open spaces, the sunsets that drenched the evening sky in blistering color. He loved the warmth of the people. Above all, he loved smell of promise that hung in the air. Europe, he could see now, was slowly suffocating under the weight of its own history. In America the future was the only thing that mattered.” pg 57. Frederick throws himself into the American Dream- earning money and providing for his family to the detriment of his relationship with his wife, Jette.
I also loved the parts about music. In this portion, Joseph, Frederick’s son, is taking voice lessons from a rather conservative side character named Frau Bloomberg: “…Bloomberg did not approve of most of opera’s greatest female characters, who were (in her opinion) either hysterical hotheads or dissolute fornicators. She was determined to protect Joseph from all that depravity. Whenever he asked the meaning of a particular foreign word, Frau Bloomberg said the first thing that came into her head. As a result, when Joseph wistfully sang about the imminent return of a long-lost lover from overseas, he believed that he was telling a touching story about penguins.” pg 70
We don’t really get to meet the narrator of the story until much later in the book and, I think, that’s where the story line became unfocused. A couple chapters deal mostly with young men’s coming-of-age and burgeoning sexuality, so there’s a lot about masturbation. Everyone does it, I get that, but really, did it have to be such a theme? As I read it, I was wondering what some of the more elderly members of my book club are going to say about it.
In my mind, the first part of the book was the strongest- the origin story of Jette and Frederick. “My grandmother’s life had been one long opera. There had been drama, heroes, villains, improbable plot twists, all that. But most of all there had been love, great big waves of it, crashing ceaselessly against the rocks of life, bearing us all back to grace.” pg 329. There is a sweetness to their story that the rest of the book is missing.
It may be that this story simply goes on too long, but the author was clearly caught up in his own tale. “Telling stories was still a means of escape. And so I put a fresh sheet of paper into the machine, ready to flee once again. This time I no longer thought about getting published, but just wrote for my own amusement. The journey, not the destination, became the thing, and I rediscovered the simple satisfaction of seeing my ideas materialize before me, sentence after sentence.” pg 344 Even though he was speaking through his character, I’m convinced that that bit right there was all Alex George- a manifesto of sorts, written right into the story.
A Good American is also about race, religion, brotherhood, honesty, marriage, fidelity and more. Plenty for a book club to take part and chew over. Recommended for folks who like their historical fiction long and meandering with, sometimes shocking, turns in the road. Thanks for reading!
Sometimes life kills you before you die. It’s not a death of the body but a slow wearing away of the spirit that you carried from your birth through your childhood until wherever it is that time finds you now. That flickering flame of beliefs and dreams that you somehow knew was a true vision of reality but you had no real reason to believe so, except that inner feeling in your chest that would incline its head in quiet acknowledgment when you consult it. I thought that life had devoured my romantic streak but then this little book of poetry made me cry and I realized that my flame still burns. Some things can never be lost. That’s what this collection made me feel. I suppose all good poetry should make you feel like that.
What a year! Thank you to everyone on Goodreads (and WordPress!) for sharing their reads and giving me a safe space to write my thoughts. I look forward to seeing what everyone gets up in 2017!
**Please do not read this review if you intend to read this book and haven’t yet. I discuss a major plot twist and don’t want to spoil it for anyone.**
The Given World gave me a headache. Why is it that when “serious” fiction “examines” life that it only focuses on the bad stuff?
Bartholomew is a Breedling- an immortal spirit that guides the souls of the mortal dead to their eternal homes. He is tasked by his masters, the Fates, to find the Creators of the world, who have gone missing. Bartholomew finds the ones he’s seeking, but then refuses to reveal their location and as punishment, he is sealed in a prison until he changes his mind or the end of time, whichever comes first. But, magically, Bartholomew escapes and finds himself in 19th century Chicago in the company of two boys who are named Charlie and Jimmy. Bartholomew must find a certain mortal to bind his spirit to this world or he will end up back in his timeless prison. He also must complete his original quest- to find the Eden Wanderer. But, he must accomplish all of this without the mortals knowing who he really is or what he is really seeking. Will he succeed?
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