América del Norte

by Nicolás Medina Mora

Moving between New York City, Mexico City, and Iowa City, a young member of the Mexican elite sees his life splinter in a centuries-spanning debut that blends the Latin American traditions of Roberto Bolaño and Fernanda Melchor with the autofiction of US writers like Ben Lerner and Teju Cole.

Sebastián 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 Sebastián’s life is shaken by the Trump administration’s restrictions on immigrants, his mother’s terminal cancer, the cracks in his relationship, and his father’s forced resignation at the hands of Mexico’s new president. As he struggles through the Trump and López Obrador years, Sebastián must confront his father’s role in the Mexican drug war and navigate 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.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Historical Fiction, Novels, Literature

480 pages, Hardcover

First published May 7, 2024

Reviews

[Ruben · Rating 4 out of 5]

At some point, around 20% in, I was ready to give up on this novel - too fragmentary, too many intellectual musings, too little glue to hold it all together. But I am very glad I didn't!

Once I got used to the structure, the story coalesced into what the spectacular cover art promises: a caleidoscopic view of Mexican-American relations from the historical to the political to the personal level.

The first person narrator, Sebastián, is an 'Austro-Hungarian', i.e. part of the Mexican elite that has more or less uninterruptedly remained close to power since the short reign of Emperor Maximilian in the 1860s. But if in Mexico the austro-hungaros may be upper class, their status radically changes as soon as they cross the border - in particular after Trump takes office.

After graduating from Yale, Sebastián decides to become a writer and enrols in an Iowa writer's programme, where he meets his fiancee Lee, but it's increasingly difficult for him to accept the worsening position of Mexican immigrants and the fact that he is seen as one...

This novel is full of great quotes and astute observations, and I wish I had an e-copy to paste from. I listened to it on audio and while the narrator is excellent and has a beautiful voice, I believe this book is best read in physical form, because many sentences require re-reading before fully grasping them.

It's ambitious and very self-assured, and, ultimately, also convincing.

[Cher 'N Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars = Fantastic and easy to recommend.

“Why haven’t the poor killed the rich already?”

This was a thought provoking novel but as is often the case with literary fiction, it was also a bit slow especially towards the end. It was a timely read given how America in its fascist glory is currently self-destructing, in part by torching bridges, severing ties and relations with its oldest and closest allies.

“The clown had many supporters, but the fury with which they chanted his racist slogans was proof they knew they were losing. The Mussolinian rallies that so unsettled reporters were the final tantrum of a silent majority that was never truly silent and was no longer a majority. They would not go gentle - they would kick and scream until the bitter end - but go they would, into the goodness of the night.”

In addition to exploring the US/Mexico historical and current day relationship and contrasting of the two cultures, there was lots of commentary on class relations. Don’t let the verbose first sentence turn you off as it is not indicative of the prose as a whole.

“This is because the Mexican elite, usually so hypocritical, is more honest than the American ruling class in at least one respect: it feels no need to go through the motions of meritocracy and pretend, against all evidence, that the children of wealthy and powerful people grow up to become wealthy and powerful not because they are the children of their parents but because they are talented and hardworking.”
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First Sentence: Like the Spaniards before them, the Americans landed in Veracruz and marched west, away from the malarial fevers of the Tierra Caliente and up the jagged slopes of the Sierra Madre, past taciturn agaves and stern oyameles and the blinding snowcaps of half-asleep volcanoes, until they reached the high valley where the air was thin and clear and the white light of the autumn sun fell vertical and merciless on the ill-defended capital, casting angular shadows on the barricades where the remnants of an army of barefoot conscripts whiled away their final moments, dulling terror with liquor and gambling, gathering stones to throw when their obsolete muskets ran out of ammunition, not so much resolved as resigned to die in a futile stand against an enemy destined to rule the continent.

Favorite Quote: I thought of my American friends, the intensity with which they approached the business of living, their sincere desire to be good, their earnest embrace of irony, the seriousness of their studies, the shamelessness of their ignorance, their metropolitan world-weariness, their provincial innocence, the way they carried their citizenship with a combination of pride and shame - at once a bloodstain, a carte blanche, a debt to pay, a call to arms, and a question mark.

[takeeveryshot · Rating 5 out of 5]

rtc i gotta meditate on it

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

In América del Norte Medina Mora weaves Mexican history into the story of Sebastián who is the son of a Mexican politician and Yale graduate who embarks on an MFA program at Iowa in a post Trump America, while also dealing with his father’s hand in the drug war in Mexico, his mother’s battle with cancer, and the realization of his own whiteness . Set in the U.S and Mexico Sebastián is faced with the dichotomy between his two countries and how he is perceived in both. Medina Mora did a great job with his exploration of colonialism, class, politics, Mexican & U.S history , and immigration. There was something powerful reading about recent U.S history in a novel I don't quite have the words for it at the moment, but wow. Such a great debut. Many thanks to NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for ARC of this audiobook.

[yoidivichon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Puedo entender porqué a alguien no le gustaría (o incluso le molestaría) este libro.

Aún así, está escrito de una manera hermosa. Me parece, además, que la persona que lo escribió está plenamente consciente del lugar desde el que escribe, lo que -al menos para mí- lo hizo muy ameno de leer.

[Desirée · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pues qué decir de esta novela que pasé tantos meses leyendo. Entiendo el por qué es polémica y pueda parecer problemática desde la superficie, pero creo que el autor está completamente consciente de su privilegio y de la posición desde la que escribe, la prosa está escrita de una manera preciosa y finalmente es graciosísima, gran parte de la lectura solo fui yo riendo en voz alta.

[Camilo Ruiz Tassinari · Rating 2 out of 5]

A sophisticated discussion of this book would have to tackle: its too canonical vision of Mexican history -the Conquest, the Mexican American War, López Obrador’s inauguration-; its reduction of North America to Condesa and Brooklyn (and a few streets of Iowa City); the tension between Big Events and the Lesser Concerns that the main character spends so much time mulling over. I would listen to a podcast that deals with these in detail. Many readers will giggle at the plot announced in the book's back -'wealthy Mexican realizes that despite going to Yale he isn't really white'-. I wouldn't mind it too much if the result were less centered on endless self-examination. My qualm, that stands tall before all these other historic-philosophical concerns, is simply that the novel ends up being boring. I’m not a great fan of novels bent on the collapse of the plot and the fragmentation of narrative, but there is a way of doing it well. Postmodernism should not be celebrated for postmodernism's sake though. While I found some passages well done, exciting, even beautiful, América del Norte does not work out, nor is it enjoyable as a 450-page novel.

[Kent Mann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shout out to Goodreads and SOHO for getting me an ARC to explore!

But most of all, thanks to Author Nicolas Medina Mora for the artistically paced narration and scene setting, I found myself walking the streets of Mexico City and quietly forgetting I had never been to Mexico City! This book I would recommend to any lovers of history, and political intrigue.

My only quips would be the rather large number of personalities listed in the front, and the lack of a table of contents.

[Daniel Herman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Generous of me to give it two stars. Only because he can write and when he learns that he needs an editor who will call him out on his bullshit he might put together a book both meaningful and readable. This book is neither.

[Lily O’Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sebastian is the son of a wealthy politician, raised in Mexico City who goes to Yale and becomes a writer in NYC. I bought this book in New Haven at grey matter books, and read it in CDMX, which was so interesting to traverse between the places described in this book. Great book!!

I enjoyed how the book went between historical documents, anecdotes and the main plot to tell a complete narrative. Sebastian is deeply self conscious, as a result of being raised in a very public setting, and feels like there’s no where he belongs. He feels disliked and judged in Mexico City for being rich and having a high profile father, but misunderstood and discriminated against in the US. Medina Mora uses this experience to create an argument about the geopolitical relationship between the US and Mexico. It is an absolutely scathing piece, both demonstrating his own self hatred and his disdain for most of the people closest to him. He was kind of an unlikeable character but i appreciate his vulnerability and I hope he learns to accept himself!

I would definitely recommend

[Lauren Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts of the book were very interesting and I was excited to read more, but then it would drag on and on and become boring. Certain parts are in Spanish so if you don’t understand it might be difficult to grasp what is being written

[Jazmin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmmm. Kind of felt like a glorified self insert novel about the author, kind of dragged on for way too long, kind of underwhelming ending, but it did tickle the itch in my brain obsessed w how race and class operate in Latin America versus the US. Some good quotes but also some not so good ones.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun to read about iowa city

[Dawn Marie · Rating 1 out of 5]

this was a slog, i finished it out of curiosity to see who else he name dropped, but ugh. the dialogues felt scripted and forced, the teetering between extreme privilege and ruin unconvincing, and there were way, way, way too many pages of faux intellectual failed essays. for all his deconstruction, this hyper priviledged guy thinks his back of the napkin scribbles are worthy of his readers' time. nasty. i urgently need a palate cleanse.

[Isabel Cornelius de la Torriente · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aldrig läst något skrivet på det sättet, förvirrande ibland. Så mycket olika perspektiv och historier i ett. Jag gillade den, speciellt efter Mexiko, såklart

[C · Rating 3 out of 5]

In theory I liked the layered story, but at the end of the day I wanted more from this style of storytelling. It ended up feeling more like an author working through his own life than a novel. Perhaps how meta it was (MC writing creative nonfiction and wanted to do something that sounded awfully like what the book is) hurt it for me, because instead of clicking it just felt like reportage to no end. I found some of the relationship questions interesting but it didn’t dig deep enough for me.

[Danica Stojanovic-Schaffrath · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generous 2,5 for a rather dull novel that tried too hard

[Lia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was written in the most pseudo intellectual fashion ever - what saves it is the fact that it’s clear that this is the author’s intent and he is in on the fact that its sort of insufferable making it a great critique of intellectualism for the sake of intellectualism

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

ALC gifted by NetGalley

Reminds me a lot of TOWN OF BABYLON. If you like more vignettes autofiction infused with humor, sarcasm, and political commentary (sometimes at the expense of plot), then you’d love this!

I really love the discussions of how the MC’s gender, class, and adjacency to whiteness seems to protect him from white supremacy initially, until it doesn’t.

Lots of Spanish too! I had no idea what those dialogues are about on audio but it didn’t affect my reading experience at all. If anything, it made me want to pick up a physical copy and Google translate them. Based on the context I think there will be a lot of Easter eggs 🤣

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book with important things to say, but it was too long and really seemed to devolve there at the end (though maybe that was on purpose, to reflect the main character's mental state?)

[Paul Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

IF A NOVELIST invents a new name for the character whose circumstances map closely onto his own, does that make the resulting book an "autobiographical novel" rather than "autofiction"? I don't have a literary taxonomist handy to answer the question, so I will just note that the narrator of América del Norte, Sebastián Arteaga y Salazar, shares with his creator (a) Mexican citizenship, (b) an undergraduate degree from Yale, (c) a stint as a long-form journalist in New York City, and (d) study in the nonfiction program of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

I don't know whether Medina Mora, like his protagonist, grew up in the none-more-elite Roma neighborhood of Mexico City, nor whether his family is as wealthy and powerful as Sebastián's, nor whether his ancestors are Spanish with virtually no admixture of indigenous DNA, but I suspect all that is likely the case as well.

Sebastián/Nicolás's own term for people of his class--"Austro-Hungarians"--is a complex joke based on that class's vanity about their being descended exclusively from Spanish colonizers. The Hapsburgs were the longtime royal family of Spain who happened also to be the royal line of the Austro-Hungarian empire, so Mexicans without any indigenous ancestors are...Austro-Hungarian.

The configuration of Sebastián's identity is a crucial ingredient of the novel. It is set during the first couple of years of the first Trump administration, and Sebastián is sometimes in Iowa City, sometimes in Mexico City visiting family, sometimes in New York City hanging out in his old stomping grounds.

In Mexico, he is the son of a Supreme Court justice, beneficiary of family wealth and of an elite education abroad, someone who gets (and needs!) a bodyguard. In the United States, though, he is a Mexican, object not just of longstanding xenophobic hostility but now also of state policy, a target for ICE.

Medina Mora stirs into the novel some historical vignettes of Mexican-U.S. relations and of creole-indigenous relations, so we meet the cadets of Chapultepec, Sor Juana, Alfonso Reyes, Jose Vasconcelos, and a good many writers and thinkers as well as many characters that (I am guessing) would be quickly recognized had you been hanging out at the Fox Head Tavern circa 2017.

The question hovering before Sebastián is whether to make his career in the United States or Mexico. He is fluent in both Spanish and English, so he could work in either country. In the U.S., he would have to deal with Trump and Trumpery. In Mexico, he would have to deal with the ascendancy of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, who seeks to once and for all undermine the long-standing power of the class to which Sebastián's family belongs. To complicate things, Sebastián's mother is dying, and his girlfriend is Anglo.

We don't find out, exactly, which way he is going to go. In the final scene, he is in an airport, watching planes depart. Most of the book is written in English, but the chapter titles and a fair bit of dialogue is in Spanish. As if that weren't ambivalence enough, consider this: the book's final sentence is in what looks to me like Coptic.

América del Norte is a big, cranky, ambitious, witty, brilliant, brimful of attitude novel. And a great read.

[Sergio Audelo Egea · Rating 5 out of 5]

No sé si Goodreads sea una plataforma que aprecie la transparencia, pero como para mí es importante en otros aspectos de mi vida, la tendré aquí también: Nico es un querido amigo mío.

Una de las cosas que más aprecié es la manera en que el libro comienza a historizar el pasado inmediato de una manera que pocas otras novelas contemporáneas siento que lo han hecho. Probablemente lo sentí porque en particular aquella época de 2015-2018 es una que recuerdo políticamente bastante bien. Nada que ver, pero me recuerda a She Said (2022), la película sobre la investigación en contra de Harvey Weinstein, en que parece ser una película de época de los tardíos 2010, con como se comienza a visualizar de manera retrospectiva el panorama sociopolítico y cultural a grandes rasgos de esos momentos (Todo esto me da una idea de investigar cuáles son las primeras películas/libros que historizan sus pasados cercanos: Es decir, por ejemplo, primer narrativa que toma lugar en los ochenta, hecha años después, y que comienza a evidenciar la percepción histórica generalizada que tenemos sobre "los ochenta."). Sebastián, el narrador, también tiene la clara intención de ser leído como súper apático de una manera que, al menos para mí, es muy de los tardíos 2010.

Creo que leí el libro tristemente en el momento ideal, tras la muerte de mi abuelita estadounidense que vivía en Ohio, donde he pasado múltiples veranos e inviernos durante toda mi vida, todo esto llevándome a repensar los lazos emocionales tanto positivos como negativos que tengo con aquella fría tierra del norte.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

truthfully this book was challenging for me, but (as you can see) i have plenty to say about it. a lot, if not all, the references to literature and philosophy went way over my head. i don’t think I like the protagonist (or was supposed to), but i definitely get what motivates him and physically felt his anxiety and uncomfortableness from the complex contradictions that he is constantly trying to sort out. the book felt like an endless cycle of contradictions as the characters try to determine what is the absolute right and wrong in a world full of grey area.

i really like that the author is constantly tempting you to think this is memoir or autofiction, but then reminds you throughout the book that this is a work of fiction and that all fiction is a lie.

also this book felt a little too timely as i plan a trip to CDMX lol

[excerpt from a note I wrote halfway through the book] he’s like too smart for his own good, but also pretentious and trying to pretend he’s meta and over aware but gets lost in the guilt and also not validating his own trauma/experiences and is more concerned with self-flagellation than understanding the complexities of the human experience and universal suffering.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This complex novel follows Sebastian, a young Mexican man from the upper classes, and a political journalist, who has an undergraduate degree in English literature from Yale, and is a graduate student at the famed Iowa writing program.

The timing is the first Trump administration and Sebastian is anxious about his status as an immigrant.

In addition to that thread, he also explores Mexican history, from the time of the Spanish invasion, through the Mexican-American War, and the more recent drug wars. It is a far-reaching and fascinating novel, but if you have no knowledge of Spanish, you will be at a disadvantage, since there are headings, phrases, and occasional full pages. Fortunately for me, I had sufficient background to understand it directly or from context. Perhaps all of that should have been presented in both languages, but that might have detracted from the novel's authenticity.

[Anika Kuepfer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of good ruminating on conflicting identities. Loved the part about his mother in the hospital:

“…hoping to keep at bay the dread that seized me anew each time I discovered, yet again, that my mother wasn't some ethereal spirit beyond the reach of disease and decay, but a creature of this black earth…”

I found that I tired of the historical passages after a while but only because I was more interested in the other narrative. I guess the author’s point was that in order to understand Sebastián’s life, one must understand the complex political history of Mexico.

Also, I think it’s quite obvious to say that a Spanish speaker would get more out of this book than I did. However, I did discover the photo feature on google translate about halfway through the book, which saved me a lot of typing for the translations!

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unusual structure--anecdotes and essays, a chapter or two of academic satire, a chapter or two about a late-20-something romantic relationship trying to sort itself out. Sometimes a journalistic tone, sometimes professorial, occasionally more emotional. Kind of a mash-up of Rachel Cusk and Zadie Smith and HBO's Los Spookys.

I could have lived without the chapter written as one never-ending sentence (a spoof of French technique?). I may always remember the chapter where the TA lost his self-control and demolished the nascent-fascist student in the undergrad seminar he was teaching. I appreciated the careful explanation of the differences between bars and cantinas in Mexico City and the taxonomy of "fresas" and other types among Mexico's more privileged classes.

[Daniel Besinaiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Potentially one of the best books I have ever read!

You can get as much out of the book as you want - you can skim through the more difficult sections and still enjoy the plot. It's a book that reads as both fiction and seemingly nonfiction. It's centered on racial/ethnic identity, class, Mexican history and politics, and many sociopolitical dynamics in the US (including Trump's political consequences, the Midwestern academic vs. coastal elite, etc.). It also has romance and a touch of family drama. He writes in a combination of essays, anecdotes, and/or short stories that can be difficult to digest at first but come together at the end for a really interesting and deep ending! Highly, highly recommend!

[Sara Luzuriaga · Rating 4 out of 5]

really readable, often hilarious, sometimes cutting, sometimes oversimplified when it came to human interactions. a tome of a novel-essay-history-travelogue, the tale of a rich guy from mexico who went to yale and iowa (!!) and now is contending with all these different parts of himself and his history that the US is unwilling to accommodate. relatable! minus the being descended from many generations of rich people part, and minus all the security detail when he's a kid. gonna miss being inside this narrator's mind! also how did he get his iowa undergrads to be so passionate about his class... asking for a friend

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag and really tough to rate. There were parts that were beautiful. The disjointed style of writing took a bit to get used to, but eventually it felt like life - a collage of memories and thoughts and influences.

The book is so incredibly pretentious though. Self aware of it's pretentiousness, but I don't think it really helps.The narrator is a self absorbed asshole. Also, I'm not sure if I would recommend it to someone who doesn't already have a bit of understanding of the history of Mexico.

Being able to read both English and Spanish very helpful. (There's a bit of French and Ge'ez???? as well)

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book kicks my butt. I know I need to read a dictionary on every page of his book. And I love that kind of intellectual exercise.
The structure challenges.
The language challenges.
The politics challenge.
To weave together so many pieces of the political and the mundane with such mastery truly is a talent.

And yet, I feel like there is more for me to extract. I know that I must read this book again and again to "get it." And I look forward to those additional readings.

Ethiopia indeed!