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America America
A stunning novel, set in a small town during the Nixon era and today, about America and family, politics and tragedy, and the impact of fate on a young man’s life.
In the early 1970s, Corey Sifter, the son of working-class parents, becomes a yard boy on the grand estate of the powerful Metarey family. Soon, through the family’s generosity, he is a student at a private boarding school and an aide to the great New York senator Henry Bonwiller, who is running for president of the United States. Before long, Corey finds himself involved with one of the Metarey daughters as well, and he begins to leave behind the world of his upbringing. As the Bonwiller campaign gains momentum, Corey finds himself caught up in a complex web of events in which loyalty, politics, sex, and gratitude conflict with morality, love, and the truth. America America is a beautiful novel about America as it was and is, a remarkable exploration of how vanity, greatness, and tragedy combine to change history and fate.
In the early 1970s, Corey Sifter, the son of working-class parents, becomes a yard boy on the grand estate of the powerful Metarey family. Soon, through the family’s generosity, he is a student at a private boarding school and an aide to the great New York senator Henry Bonwiller, who is running for president of the United States. Before long, Corey finds himself involved with one of the Metarey daughters as well, and he begins to leave behind the world of his upbringing. As the Bonwiller campaign gains momentum, Corey finds himself caught up in a complex web of events in which loyalty, politics, sex, and gratitude conflict with morality, love, and the truth. America America is a beautiful novel about America as it was and is, a remarkable exploration of how vanity, greatness, and tragedy combine to change history and fate.
458 pages, Hardcover
First published June 24, 2008
133 people are currently reading
2450 people want to read
About the author
Ethan Canin
33 books307 followersHighly regarded as both a novelist and a short story writer, Ethan Canin has ranged in his career from the "breathtaking" short stories of Emperor of the Air to the "stunning" novellas of The Palace Thief, from the "wise and beautiful" short novel Carry Me Across the Water to the "epic" America America. His short stories, which have been the basis for four Hollywood movies, have appeared in a wide range of magazines, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, The Paris Review, and Granta, and have been selected for many prize anthologies.
The son of a musician and a public-school art teacher, he spent his childhood in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and California before attending Stanford University, the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and then Harvard Medical School. He subsequently gave up a career in medicine to write and teach, and is now F. Wendell Miller Professor of English at his alma mater, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he has been privileged to teach a great number of talented new writers. In his spare time he is very slowly remodeling two old houses, one in the woods of northern Michigan and the other in Iowa City, where he lives with his wife, their three children, and four chickens.
The son of a musician and a public-school art teacher, he spent his childhood in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and California before attending Stanford University, the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and then Harvard Medical School. He subsequently gave up a career in medicine to write and teach, and is now F. Wendell Miller Professor of English at his alma mater, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he has been privileged to teach a great number of talented new writers. In his spare time he is very slowly remodeling two old houses, one in the woods of northern Michigan and the other in Iowa City, where he lives with his wife, their three children, and four chickens.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 627 reviews
March 6, 2019
I bought the book for 50 cents at Big Lots. It sat on my shelf for at least a year. I picked it up and fell in love. I did not want to read it too fast, yet did not want to put it down. In his blurb, Pat Conroy confesses, "I love this book." Well, Pat, I do too. I finished it over a week ago, and the characters and images live in my mind's eye as if I had lived the story myself.
Corey, the son of a blue-collar, working class man, shares his father's high standards of careful workmanship. While helping his father replace a drain, and saving the roots of an aged oak tree, he is noticed by Liam Metery, who has inherited the wealth accumulated by his Gilded Age grandfather. Corey is asked to help around the Metarey estate, and as Liam Metary and his family come to respect Corey, he is invited into their lives. Liam himself is a man who loves workmanship, and the simple pleasure of hands-on industry. He is also a progressive liberal who decides to back the great Liberal senator from New York State, Henry Bonwiller, in his run for the presidency in 1972.
As Corey becomes involved with the behind-the-scene machinations of politics, his world widens. Corey is especially taken by a journalist, who becomes his role model, leading him to his life's work in journalist. Corey is also affected by Liam's dreams of a better country, the end of the war in Viet Nam, and a government that aligns itself with the common man's good. Liam recognizes the boy's potential, and assists him with a scholarship to a private school, and later leaves him money for a Harvard education.
The fairy tale unravels, dragging Liam and Corey into the ambiguous black hole created by Bonwiller, and their loss of innocence reflects the national loss of idealism in the 1970s.
What would you do to protect your most sacred dream? How reliable are the human vessels in whom you place your dreams? Can you live with the knowledge that you have compromised yourself?
One reviewer I read thought that the title "America, America" should be heard like a sigh for what might have been, knowledge of what has been lost.
Corey, the son of a blue-collar, working class man, shares his father's high standards of careful workmanship. While helping his father replace a drain, and saving the roots of an aged oak tree, he is noticed by Liam Metery, who has inherited the wealth accumulated by his Gilded Age grandfather. Corey is asked to help around the Metarey estate, and as Liam Metary and his family come to respect Corey, he is invited into their lives. Liam himself is a man who loves workmanship, and the simple pleasure of hands-on industry. He is also a progressive liberal who decides to back the great Liberal senator from New York State, Henry Bonwiller, in his run for the presidency in 1972.
As Corey becomes involved with the behind-the-scene machinations of politics, his world widens. Corey is especially taken by a journalist, who becomes his role model, leading him to his life's work in journalist. Corey is also affected by Liam's dreams of a better country, the end of the war in Viet Nam, and a government that aligns itself with the common man's good. Liam recognizes the boy's potential, and assists him with a scholarship to a private school, and later leaves him money for a Harvard education.
The fairy tale unravels, dragging Liam and Corey into the ambiguous black hole created by Bonwiller, and their loss of innocence reflects the national loss of idealism in the 1970s.
What would you do to protect your most sacred dream? How reliable are the human vessels in whom you place your dreams? Can you live with the knowledge that you have compromised yourself?
One reviewer I read thought that the title "America, America" should be heard like a sigh for what might have been, knowledge of what has been lost.
November 25, 2019
Το αγάπησα!!! Πολύ! Συστήνεται ανεπιφύλακτα!
December 19, 2013
America America is Ethan Canin's best novel, but its timing is unnerving. His ruminative story begins with a funeral for the country's greatest liberal senator, whose presidential ambitions were smashed years earlier by the death of a young campaign aide in a drunk-driving accident. The novel really isn't about Sen. Ted Kennedy, but the resemblance is impossible to ignore, and Kennedy's recent announcement that he has a malignant brain tumor has already started, for many of us, the process of reflection that America America records in such sensitive detail.
The middle-aged narrator, Corey Sifter, was an eager, observant teenager during Sen. Bonwiller's campaign for the presidential nomination in 1972. Now publisher of a small newspaper, Corey looks back on the events of that time, amazed by the shady, private way power brokers and journalists once conducted the nation's politics. He was 16, living in a town near Buffalo, N.Y., "that was almost entirely built and owned by a single family, the Metareys." Despite their vast wealth and influence, the Metareys had, over several generations, become modest and beneficent lords. They drove ordinary cars, shopped in the same stores as their employees and sent their children to the public schools. Corey tells us that the patriarch, Liam Metarey, "was a generous, civic-minded, and altruistic patron of the whole community," with a strong interest in shaping government from behind the scenes. He got Henry Bonwiller elected to the Senate and tried with all his might and money to get him elected president. That disastrous effort becomes the backdrop of this complex novel.
Canin carefully splices his fictional characters into the news of the 1960s and '70s -- a masterful feat of literary Photoshop. The Vietnam War is tearing the country apart and wearing down President Nixon; Sen. Edward Muskie hasn't cried yet in the New Hampshire snowstorm, but Bonwiller's people already believe their man can beat him for the Democratic nomination. Liam Metarey's house serves as the Bonwiller headquarters, and we see the campaign from a highly impressionistic and limited point of view. After all, Corey, the son of solid working-class parents, is just a high school sophomore during this heady political time. He gets a job as a groundskeeper on the Metarey estate, which gives him a venue, he notes, to observe "everything that was happening so openly, and yet so mysteriously, in front of me."
While the nation's eyes are on Sen. Bonwiller, we focus on Liam Metarey, an introspective kingmaker more comfortable fixing his tractor than counseling legislators. Wearing his noblesse oblige like an old flannel shirt, he takes a fatherly interest in the boy, and before long he's treating him as a son and sometimes even a confidant. "I'd lost track of where I'd come from," Corey admits. "And because of the Metareys' generosity -- I call it that, though I could as easily call it their peculiarity, or, as my wife used to say, their nasty sport-- because of how the Metareys let me into their existence, I think I first took it inside myself, at the age of sixteen, that such an existence might someday be mine." His ambitious feelings are further complicated by his attraction to one of the beautiful Metarey daughters, an attraction her father seems to encourage despite the yawning distance between their two families.
Canin, who teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, has written before about the seductive and transformative power of people with extraordinary wealth, but never with such sensitivity. His overly lush For Kings and Planets (1998) described a wide-eyed boy from Missouri who goes to New York and befriends a dazzling, affluent student at Columbia University. Maybe America America presents a more intricate and mature exploration of this theme because the author no longer seems so spellbound by money. That emotional distance allows Canin to draw the rich and poor as vastly more interesting and multivalent characters.
America America isn't hawking any particular partisan agenda, but like other great political novels, it's a story in which the audacity of hope confronts the tenacity of power -- and loses. As Corey looks back on his teenage self and the men who plotted to take the White House that year, the novel becomes a reflection on a young man's maturity and the moral calculus of democratic government. "I've never known another politician, and have never again in my life come so close to a man of history like Senator Bonwiller," Corey says. "I took every incident as a fable, every milestone as a fortuitous lesson on how to act in this new and public world. . . . I didn't like him much, even then, but I suppose in those days there was nothing I wouldn't do for him."
Sen. Bonwiller is celebrated as the man who did "more for the causes of civil rights and labor than anyone in congressional history." But what troubled Corey then and continues to haunt him as an adult is the contrast between "public idealism and such personal ruthlessness," between the character needed to win an election and the character needed to lead a nation. Once the office has been attained, Corey notes, "then a politician must make a transformation that he may have no more ability to make than he has to grow wings and fly. He must change his personal ambition into ambition for his country."
One has to accept -- even enjoy -- a fair amount of such wisdom in America America. In addition to his role as a teacher in the country's most prestigious writing school, Canin is a physician, and perhaps those two offices of supreme authority are responsible for a narrator who tends to lecture. That's fine with me, so long as the lecturer is this insightful and moving. We've waited a long time for a worthy successor to Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, and it couldn't have arrived at a more auspicious moment than this season of potentially epochal political change.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
The middle-aged narrator, Corey Sifter, was an eager, observant teenager during Sen. Bonwiller's campaign for the presidential nomination in 1972. Now publisher of a small newspaper, Corey looks back on the events of that time, amazed by the shady, private way power brokers and journalists once conducted the nation's politics. He was 16, living in a town near Buffalo, N.Y., "that was almost entirely built and owned by a single family, the Metareys." Despite their vast wealth and influence, the Metareys had, over several generations, become modest and beneficent lords. They drove ordinary cars, shopped in the same stores as their employees and sent their children to the public schools. Corey tells us that the patriarch, Liam Metarey, "was a generous, civic-minded, and altruistic patron of the whole community," with a strong interest in shaping government from behind the scenes. He got Henry Bonwiller elected to the Senate and tried with all his might and money to get him elected president. That disastrous effort becomes the backdrop of this complex novel.
Canin carefully splices his fictional characters into the news of the 1960s and '70s -- a masterful feat of literary Photoshop. The Vietnam War is tearing the country apart and wearing down President Nixon; Sen. Edward Muskie hasn't cried yet in the New Hampshire snowstorm, but Bonwiller's people already believe their man can beat him for the Democratic nomination. Liam Metarey's house serves as the Bonwiller headquarters, and we see the campaign from a highly impressionistic and limited point of view. After all, Corey, the son of solid working-class parents, is just a high school sophomore during this heady political time. He gets a job as a groundskeeper on the Metarey estate, which gives him a venue, he notes, to observe "everything that was happening so openly, and yet so mysteriously, in front of me."
While the nation's eyes are on Sen. Bonwiller, we focus on Liam Metarey, an introspective kingmaker more comfortable fixing his tractor than counseling legislators. Wearing his noblesse oblige like an old flannel shirt, he takes a fatherly interest in the boy, and before long he's treating him as a son and sometimes even a confidant. "I'd lost track of where I'd come from," Corey admits. "And because of the Metareys' generosity -- I call it that, though I could as easily call it their peculiarity, or, as my wife used to say, their nasty sport-- because of how the Metareys let me into their existence, I think I first took it inside myself, at the age of sixteen, that such an existence might someday be mine." His ambitious feelings are further complicated by his attraction to one of the beautiful Metarey daughters, an attraction her father seems to encourage despite the yawning distance between their two families.
Canin, who teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, has written before about the seductive and transformative power of people with extraordinary wealth, but never with such sensitivity. His overly lush For Kings and Planets (1998) described a wide-eyed boy from Missouri who goes to New York and befriends a dazzling, affluent student at Columbia University. Maybe America America presents a more intricate and mature exploration of this theme because the author no longer seems so spellbound by money. That emotional distance allows Canin to draw the rich and poor as vastly more interesting and multivalent characters.
America America isn't hawking any particular partisan agenda, but like other great political novels, it's a story in which the audacity of hope confronts the tenacity of power -- and loses. As Corey looks back on his teenage self and the men who plotted to take the White House that year, the novel becomes a reflection on a young man's maturity and the moral calculus of democratic government. "I've never known another politician, and have never again in my life come so close to a man of history like Senator Bonwiller," Corey says. "I took every incident as a fable, every milestone as a fortuitous lesson on how to act in this new and public world. . . . I didn't like him much, even then, but I suppose in those days there was nothing I wouldn't do for him."
Sen. Bonwiller is celebrated as the man who did "more for the causes of civil rights and labor than anyone in congressional history." But what troubled Corey then and continues to haunt him as an adult is the contrast between "public idealism and such personal ruthlessness," between the character needed to win an election and the character needed to lead a nation. Once the office has been attained, Corey notes, "then a politician must make a transformation that he may have no more ability to make than he has to grow wings and fly. He must change his personal ambition into ambition for his country."
One has to accept -- even enjoy -- a fair amount of such wisdom in America America. In addition to his role as a teacher in the country's most prestigious writing school, Canin is a physician, and perhaps those two offices of supreme authority are responsible for a narrator who tends to lecture. That's fine with me, so long as the lecturer is this insightful and moving. We've waited a long time for a worthy successor to Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, and it couldn't have arrived at a more auspicious moment than this season of potentially epochal political change.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
September 6, 2008
wow this was a great book. Ethan Canin is a talent beyond his years. His writing style is calm and fluid. One of the best aspects of the book is the reflections that the narrator makes on his own daughters. It isn't just a story about hard work, ambition and the great American way. Canin shows us that we are just paving the way for what we set for ourselves back when we were children. I f we were digging holes when we were seven, take a look at what you are doing when you;re thirty. If your making up plays when you are six, look at your life at forty. It's a great story.
February 16, 2024
Αυτό το βιβλίο το πήρα τυχαία, μου άρεσε το εξώφυλλο. Δεν περίμενα να με κρατήσει, υπό κανονικές συνθήκες θα βαριόμουν μ ' αυτό το θέμα για την πολιτική στις ΗΠΑ, τους προέδρους κ τους γερουσιαστές.
Αυτό το έργο όμως αποδείχτηκε εξαιρετικά καλογραμμένο με αποτέλεσμα να δυσκολεύομαι να το αφήσω απ τα χέρια μου και να με πιάνω να το σκέφτομαι μέσα στη μέρα.
Πέρα από την πολιτική και τις (άρτιες ωστόσο) αφηγήσεις αχανών εκτάσεων γης και της ιστορίας τους στις κοιλάδες των ΗΠΑ πιάνει πολύ βαθιά συναισθήματα όταν αφηγείται διαπροσωπικές σχέσεις. Αυτό με αιχμαλώτισε • με συγκίνησε, μ έκανε να δακρύζω κ να κάθομαι ν αναπολώ κ τις δικές μου σχέσεις με τους ανθρώπους που τους έχω αδυναμία: τους γονείς μου, τα παιδιά μου, τον σύντροφό μου, τους αγαπημένους μου όλους.
Το κατακερματισμενο του storyline είναι ένα ευφυές μπόνους - αυτή η ένωση όλων των κομματιών τύπου μεμεντο, τύπου pulp fiction.
Κάποιες όμορφες ανατροπές που κρατάνε το στοιχείο της έκπληξης (element of surprise) και τα hints που δίνει και τα περιμένεις να εξελιχθούν σε όλο το βιβλίο - ή κάτι που έχει προαναφερθεί και μισό βιβλίο μετά το βλέπεις να πραγματώνεται, κλείνει το μάτι κ αλληλεπιδρά με τον αναγνώστη, κι έτσι πέρασα πολύ καλά, σ ένα θέμα αουτσάιντερ για μένα, όπως κάπου πιο πάνω προανέφερα.
Το μόνο που με άφησε ανικανοποίητη τροπον τινά ήταν το χλιαρό κ αδιάφορο τέλος για το.οποιο είχα προσδοκίες, αλλά και το έντονο στοιχείο της δημιουργικής γραφής που διαφαινονταν - που γυρνώντας στο βιογραφικό του συγγραφέα όντως είδα ότι είναι καθηγητής σε αυτό - έτσι τα τεχνάσματα κ όλα τα λογοτεχνικά στοιχεία με τα οποία είχε διανθίσει το βιβλίο ξαφνικά μου φάνηκαν ψεύτικα κ αυτό με απογοήτευσε. Αλλά αυτή ήταν μια τελείως προσωπική διαπίστωση κ δε χρειάζεται να σας επηρεάσει, ούτε και αναιρεί το γεγονός ότι πρόκειται για ένα αμερικανικό έπος. Τέσσερα αστέρια.
Αυτό το έργο όμως αποδείχτηκε εξαιρετικά καλογραμμένο με αποτέλεσμα να δυσκολεύομαι να το αφήσω απ τα χέρια μου και να με πιάνω να το σκέφτομαι μέσα στη μέρα.
Πέρα από την πολιτική και τις (άρτιες ωστόσο) αφηγήσεις αχανών εκτάσεων γης και της ιστορίας τους στις κοιλάδες των ΗΠΑ πιάνει πολύ βαθιά συναισθήματα όταν αφηγείται διαπροσωπικές σχέσεις. Αυτό με αιχμαλώτισε • με συγκίνησε, μ έκανε να δακρύζω κ να κάθομαι ν αναπολώ κ τις δικές μου σχέσεις με τους ανθρώπους που τους έχω αδυναμία: τους γονείς μου, τα παιδιά μου, τον σύντροφό μου, τους αγαπημένους μου όλους.
Το κατακερματισμενο του storyline είναι ένα ευφυές μπόνους - αυτή η ένωση όλων των κομματιών τύπου μεμεντο, τύπου pulp fiction.
Κάποιες όμορφες ανατροπές που κρατάνε το στοιχείο της έκπληξης (element of surprise) και τα hints που δίνει και τα περιμένεις να εξελιχθούν σε όλο το βιβλίο - ή κάτι που έχει προαναφερθεί και μισό βιβλίο μετά το βλέπεις να πραγματώνεται, κλείνει το μάτι κ αλληλεπιδρά με τον αναγνώστη, κι έτσι πέρασα πολύ καλά, σ ένα θέμα αουτσάιντερ για μένα, όπως κάπου πιο πάνω προανέφερα.
Το μόνο που με άφησε ανικανοποίητη τροπον τινά ήταν το χλιαρό κ αδιάφορο τέλος για το.οποιο είχα προσδοκίες, αλλά και το έντονο στοιχείο της δημιουργικής γραφής που διαφαινονταν - που γυρνώντας στο βιογραφικό του συγγραφέα όντως είδα ότι είναι καθηγητής σε αυτό - έτσι τα τεχνάσματα κ όλα τα λογοτεχνικά στοιχεία με τα οποία είχε διανθίσει το βιβλίο ξαφνικά μου φάνηκαν ψεύτικα κ αυτό με απογοήτευσε. Αλλά αυτή ήταν μια τελείως προσωπική διαπίστωση κ δε χρειάζεται να σας επηρεάσει, ούτε και αναιρεί το γεγονός ότι πρόκειται για ένα αμερικανικό έπος. Τέσσερα αστέρια.
July 14, 2010
Norman Rockwell meets 1970s politics? This book just did not work for me. I never got the sense that the author understood anything at all about growing up in the 70s. It felt like it was set in the 1950s instead. I also don't think that the author understood anything at all about his own protagonist, Corey Sifter. It would have been nice if we got a better portrayal of the conflicting emotions Corey must have felt for his mentor - on the one hand admiration and genuine affection, on the other hand abhorrence for the crime he believed his mentor to have committed. Instead, the author just had Corey come to the conclusion that he was clueless. Well that's neither helpful or particularly interesting. Or maybe it would have been good to explore the relationship he had with his wife, the daughter of said mentor. But her character and Corey's relationship with her weren't adequately developed. Corey told his story as if he had never talked about it with his wife, who was another witness, with a different perspective, to the same events that Corey related. Overall, the book just didn't feel very authentic. I finished it feeling slightly annoyed.
November 21, 2021
Εξαιρετικά ενδιαφέρον πολιτικό μυθιστόρημα για όσους τους αρέσει το συγκεκριμένο είδος και όχι μόνο. Η πλοκή του εναλλάσσεται ανάμεσα στις αρχές της δεκαετίας του '70 και στο σήμερα και παρακολουθεί την ιστορία του Corey Sifter, προστατευόμενου των Μέτερι, της ισχυρότερης οικογένειας της περιοχής. Μέσα από τα μάτια του γινόμαστε κι εμείς μάρτυρες μιας προεκλογικής εκστρατείας, των πολιτικών δολοπλοκιών, ενός μοιραίου δυστυχήματος, της συναισθηματικής εμπλοκής του ήρωα με τις κόρες του ευεργέτη του και τελικά της αποτίμησης όλων αυτών των ετών που πρόσφερε τις υπηρεσίες του στην εν λόγω οικογένεια.
Μείον ένα αστέρι για τις υπερβολικές λεπτομέρειες σε ορισμένα σημεία της αφήγησης, η οποία, κατά τα άλλα, ρέει πολύ εύκολα.
Μείον ένα αστέρι για τις υπερβολικές λεπτομέρειες σε ορισμένα σημεία της αφήγησης, η οποία, κατά τα άλλα, ρέει πολύ εύκολα.
December 17, 2019
http://diavazontas.blogspot.com/2019/...
Το Αμέρικα Αμέρικα είναι ένα μεγάλο αμερικάνικο μυθιστόρημα. Πρόκειται για ένα ογκώδες βιβλίο, με πολλές προεκτάσεις, μια τοιχογραφία εποχής, αλλά κι ένα μυθιστόρημα ενηλικίωσης, με έρωτα, πολιτική, πόλεμο, έγκλημα, και το αμερικάνικο όνειρο να περνούν από τις κοντά 600 σελίδες του. Προφανώς δεν είναι ΤΟ Μεγάλο Αμερικάνικο Μυθιστόρημα—αλλά αυτό μάλλον θα εξελιχθεί σε αστικό μύθο, περίπου σαν τους αλιγάτορες στους υπονόμους.
Έχουμε να κάνουμε εδώ με μια σχεδόν ντικενσιανή αφήγηση. Αφηγητής ο 50χρονος εκδότης μιας μικρομεσαίας εφημερίδας, ο Κόρει Σίφτερ, που μέσα από τα μάτια του 16χρονου εαυτού του, μας μιλά για την οικογένεια Μέτερι, αλλά και τον γερουσιαστή Μπονγουίλερ. Τον Κόρει, γιο ενός φτωχού υδραυλικού, προσέχει ο μεγιστάνας Μέτερι και τον παίρνει υπό την προστασία του. Ο Κόρει δουλεύει στο κτήμα, και κάνει πού και πού και τον σωφέρ του γερουσιαστή Μπονγουίλερ, που υποστηρίζει ο Λίαμ Μέτερι για την προεδρία. Μέχρι που ένα ατύχημα με μια νεαρή κοπέλα-ερωμένη του κόβουν τον δρόμο (οποιαδήποτε ομοιότητα με τον Τέντ Κένεντυ, φαντάζομαι πως δεν είναι τυχαία). Έτσι ο 16χρονος, που δουλεύει σκληρά και χάρη στον ευεργέτη του πηγαίνει στο καλύτερο σχολείο και ξεφεύγει από τη μοίρα του, μπλέκει στην Αμερικάνικη ιστορία. Ίντριγκες της πολιτικής, ηθικά διλήμματα, πλούσιοι που πάτησαν επί πτωμάτων, επικά πάρτυ από τη μια, και η δική του φτωχή και τίμια οικογένεια από την άλλη: δυο γενιές πριν όλοι ήρθαν μαζί στην Αμερική, ο ένας έγινε μεγιστάνας, ο άλλος εργάτης.
Δεν είναι όλες οι σκηνές ενδιαφέρουσες, ο Κόρει ως αφηγητής έχει μια αμηχανία που δεν σε αφήνει να τον αγαπήσεις. Κυρίως γιατί όλο λέει πως δεν ξέρει και δεν παίρνει ποτέ θέση. Έχει όμως σκηνές μεγάλης λογοτεχνικής ωραιότητας. Και διαπερνά ένα ολόκληρο κομμάτι της αμερικάνικης ιστορίας, μας δίνει μια φέτα του Ονείρου. Που μπορεί να μετατραπεί σε εφιάλτη, ή απλά σε συμβιβασμό.
Οι γυναικείοι χαρακτήρες, η μητέρα της οικογένειας Μέτερει και οι δυο κόρες, αλλά και η 17χρονη δόκιμη δημοσιογράφος στην οποία εξομολογείται ο πενηντάχρονος Κόρει, είναι πιο πολύπλοκοι από τους αντρικούς, μα παραμένουν στη σκιά, δεύτεροι. Ως ένα βαθμό πρόκειται για έναν ύμνο στην Αμερική και ταυτόχρονα σαν μια κραυγή για βοήθεια των υπολοίπων (Αμέρικα Αμέρικα- ο τίτλος εκφράζει τη διττή αίσθηση). Ο Μέτερι μοιάζει λίγο στον μεγάλο Γκάτσμπι, αλλά δεν είναι με την ίδια ανεμελιά επιφανειακός. Κι όσο για το τέλος, δεν δίνει καμία κάθαρση σε όλο αυτό το ξέφρενο όργιο πλούτου και πολιτικής.
Το μυθιστόρημα είναι καλογραμμένο, έκανε μεγάλο πάταγο στην Αμερική γιατί μιλάει πιθανότατα με απτό τρόπο στην ψυχή του μέσου (μορφωμένου) Αμερικανού. Από την άλλη έχει κακές στιγμές και κάποιους άνευρους χαρακτήρες, ενώ η άμεση αναφορά σε κάτι χωρίς να το λέει με το όνομά του, με ξένισε. Τα δε ηθικά διλήμματα του ήρωα μοιάζουν κάπως εκ των υστέρων. Δεν πρόκειται για ένα παγκόσμιο αριστούργημα που θα μείνει στους αιώνες, από την άλλη δεν παύει να είναι αξιοδιάβαστο, και να δίνει την αίσθηση μιας αναγνωστικής σκανταλιάς, σαν να βλέπεις ολόκληρη σεζόν από σειρά μονοκοπανιά.
Το Αμέρικα Αμέρικα είναι ένα μεγάλο αμερικάνικο μυθιστόρημα. Πρόκειται για ένα ογκώδες βιβλίο, με πολλές προεκτάσεις, μια τοιχογραφία εποχής, αλλά κι ένα μυθιστόρημα ενηλικίωσης, με έρωτα, πολιτική, πόλεμο, έγκλημα, και το αμερικάνικο όνειρο να περνούν από τις κοντά 600 σελίδες του. Προφανώς δεν είναι ΤΟ Μεγάλο Αμερικάνικο Μυθιστόρημα—αλλά αυτό μάλλον θα εξελιχθεί σε αστικό μύθο, περίπου σαν τους αλιγάτορες στους υπονόμους.
Έχουμε να κάνουμε εδώ με μια σχεδόν ντικενσιανή αφήγηση. Αφηγητής ο 50χρονος εκδότης μιας μικρομεσαίας εφημερίδας, ο Κόρει Σίφτερ, που μέσα από τα μάτια του 16χρονου εαυτού του, μας μιλά για την οικογένεια Μέτερι, αλλά και τον γερουσιαστή Μπονγουίλερ. Τον Κόρει, γιο ενός φτωχού υδραυλικού, προσέχει ο μεγιστάνας Μέτερι και τον παίρνει υπό την προστασία του. Ο Κόρει δουλεύει στο κτήμα, και κάνει πού και πού και τον σωφέρ του γερουσιαστή Μπονγουίλερ, που υποστηρίζει ο Λίαμ Μέτερι για την προεδρία. Μέχρι που ένα ατύχημα με μια νεαρή κοπέλα-ερωμένη του κόβουν τον δρόμο (οποιαδήποτε ομοιότητα με τον Τέντ Κένεντυ, φαντάζομαι πως δεν είναι τυχαία). Έτσι ο 16χρονος, που δουλεύει σκληρά και χάρη στον ευεργέτη του πηγαίνει στο καλύτερο σχολείο και ξεφεύγει από τη μοίρα του, μπλέκει στην Αμερικάνικη ιστορία. Ίντριγκες της πολιτικής, ηθικά διλήμματα, πλούσιοι που πάτησαν επί πτωμάτων, επικά πάρτυ από τη μια, και η δική του φτωχή και τίμια οικογένεια από την άλλη: δυο γενιές πριν όλοι ήρθαν μαζί στην Αμερική, ο ένας έγινε μεγιστάνας, ο άλλος εργάτης.
Δεν είναι όλες οι σκηνές ενδιαφέρουσες, ο Κόρει ως αφηγητής έχει μια αμηχανία που δεν σε αφήνει να τον αγαπήσεις. Κυρίως γιατί όλο λέει πως δεν ξέρει και δεν παίρνει ποτέ θέση. Έχει όμως σκηνές μεγάλης λογοτεχνικής ωραιότητας. Και διαπερνά ένα ολόκληρο κομμάτι της αμερικάνικης ιστορίας, μας δίνει μια φέτα του Ονείρου. Που μπορεί να μετατραπεί σε εφιάλτη, ή απλά σε συμβιβασμό.
Οι γυναικείοι χαρακτήρες, η μητέρα της οικογένειας Μέτερει και οι δυο κόρες, αλλά και η 17χρονη δόκιμη δημοσιογράφος στην οποία εξομολογείται ο πενηντάχρονος Κόρει, είναι πιο πολύπλοκοι από τους αντρικούς, μα παραμένουν στη σκιά, δεύτεροι. Ως ένα βαθμό πρόκειται για έναν ύμνο στην Αμερική και ταυτόχρονα σαν μια κραυγή για βοήθεια των υπολοίπων (Αμέρικα Αμέρικα- ο τίτλος εκφράζει τη διττή αίσθηση). Ο Μέτερι μοιάζει λίγο στον μεγάλο Γκάτσμπι, αλλά δεν είναι με την ίδια ανεμελιά επιφανειακός. Κι όσο για το τέλος, δεν δίνει καμία κάθαρση σε όλο αυτό το ξέφρενο όργιο πλούτου και πολιτικής.
Το μυθιστόρημα είναι καλογραμμένο, έκανε μεγάλο πάταγο στην Αμερική γιατί μιλάει πιθανότατα με απτό τρόπο στην ψυχή του μέσου (μορφωμένου) Αμερικανού. Από την άλλη έχει κακές στιγμές και κάποιους άνευρους χαρακτήρες, ενώ η άμεση αναφορά σε κάτι χωρίς να το λέει με το όνομά του, με ξένισε. Τα δε ηθικά διλήμματα του ήρωα μοιάζουν κάπως εκ των υστέρων. Δεν πρόκειται για ένα παγκόσμιο αριστούργημα που θα μείνει στους αιώνες, από την άλλη δεν παύει να είναι αξιοδιάβαστο, και να δίνει την αίσθηση μιας αναγνωστικής σκανταλιάς, σαν να βλέπεις ολόκληρη σεζόν από σειρά μονοκοπανιά.
December 23, 2012
I had to force myself to finish this book and believe me, was it painful! None of the characters were remotely interesting, let alone likeable. I had to wonder if the author understands ANYTHING about politics, class ambition, or human frailty, or just thought it was time for another fictional regurgitation of Chappaquiddick (see Joyce Carol Oates' "Black Water" for a very well-done fictional regurgitation of Chappaquiddick).
Corey's character is completely flat and unappealing...the author could have done so much more with his class aspirations and how he reconciled where he came from and where he ended up. Then his weird relationship/obsession with the Metarey family...I came away feeling that Corey was not very intelligent or even remotely critical of his surroundings, even for a small-town sixteen year-old in the early 1970s. And the author's decision to have him be attracted to one sister (Christian) in adolescence only to (shock!) marry the other one (Clara) in adulthood didn't change that feeling for me...it actually left me wondering for several pages if the editor had missed a typo? And the author's failure to never probe the reasons why Clara 1) set fire to her father's outbuilding, 2) purposely "fell" into Lake Erie, or 3) had been in some kind of residential treatment only to never demonstrate any inklings of emotional instability in adulthood made me think Corey was even duller than I had suspected. And we're supposed to believe that the obviously uncaring and alcoholic mother is an accomplished aviatrix in her free time? Please, give the reader a break!
And Trieste...my goodness!! What a caricature: a talented and gifted (not to mention androgynous) young woman whose genius father has decided to drop out of society (where he was making bombs or something along those lines for the government) and live on a commune, thereby forcing his family into a poverty that is insulting to people who truly live in poverty. There was nothing organic about Trieste, right down to her name...I wondered if the author considered the more obvious let's-forgo-modern-conveniences-and-live-in-a-blueberry-marsh-names like "Sunshine" or "Rainbow" to make sure that the reader didn't miss just how intellectual her parents are, but it was just so heavy-handed that everything the character did rang false. Not to mention how her repeated use of "Sir" in regard to Corey (who wouldn't inspire such respect in anyone) put me in mind of Marcie and Peppermint Patty of Peanuts fame...which I'm sure is not the connection the author hoped for.
I can't imagine what the other reviewers are raving about...if you want to read about working class people so full of yearning to belong to landed class that they sell themselves in ways they could never have imagined, leaving the lessons of their childhoods at the door, check out Dominick Dunne...he actually knew what he was talking about, and turned out some fantastic stories. He is sorely missed.
Corey's character is completely flat and unappealing...the author could have done so much more with his class aspirations and how he reconciled where he came from and where he ended up. Then his weird relationship/obsession with the Metarey family...I came away feeling that Corey was not very intelligent or even remotely critical of his surroundings, even for a small-town sixteen year-old in the early 1970s. And the author's decision to have him be attracted to one sister (Christian) in adolescence only to (shock!) marry the other one (Clara) in adulthood didn't change that feeling for me...it actually left me wondering for several pages if the editor had missed a typo? And the author's failure to never probe the reasons why Clara 1) set fire to her father's outbuilding, 2) purposely "fell" into Lake Erie, or 3) had been in some kind of residential treatment only to never demonstrate any inklings of emotional instability in adulthood made me think Corey was even duller than I had suspected. And we're supposed to believe that the obviously uncaring and alcoholic mother is an accomplished aviatrix in her free time? Please, give the reader a break!
And Trieste...my goodness!! What a caricature: a talented and gifted (not to mention androgynous) young woman whose genius father has decided to drop out of society (where he was making bombs or something along those lines for the government) and live on a commune, thereby forcing his family into a poverty that is insulting to people who truly live in poverty. There was nothing organic about Trieste, right down to her name...I wondered if the author considered the more obvious let's-forgo-modern-conveniences-and-live-in-a-blueberry-marsh-names like "Sunshine" or "Rainbow" to make sure that the reader didn't miss just how intellectual her parents are, but it was just so heavy-handed that everything the character did rang false. Not to mention how her repeated use of "Sir" in regard to Corey (who wouldn't inspire such respect in anyone) put me in mind of Marcie and Peppermint Patty of Peanuts fame...which I'm sure is not the connection the author hoped for.
I can't imagine what the other reviewers are raving about...if you want to read about working class people so full of yearning to belong to landed class that they sell themselves in ways they could never have imagined, leaving the lessons of their childhoods at the door, check out Dominick Dunne...he actually knew what he was talking about, and turned out some fantastic stories. He is sorely missed.
July 22, 2008
This is the first book of Ethan Canin’s I’ve read, but it certainly won’t be the last…
"America, America" is a readable saga that’s especially relevant as it explores the nature of politics, family, class, and idealism at the height of the Vietnam War. In this coming-of-age story we follow the life of Corey Sifter, a working class boy that is both smart and ambitious-if not a bit naïve. Young Corey goes to work for the Metarey’s, the most prominent and influential family in his small New England town, and is quickly swept away in a climate of wealth and privilege he can’t help but want to be a part of. When Corey’s boss, Liam Metarey, goes to work for the Presidential Campaign of Henry Bonwiller, a Ted Kennedy-esque scandal begins to unfold and Corey’s world is turned up-side down… This thought-provoking novel is insightful, smart and engaging. If you’ve been looking for your next great summer read, you need not look any further than this fantastic book.
"America, America" is a readable saga that’s especially relevant as it explores the nature of politics, family, class, and idealism at the height of the Vietnam War. In this coming-of-age story we follow the life of Corey Sifter, a working class boy that is both smart and ambitious-if not a bit naïve. Young Corey goes to work for the Metarey’s, the most prominent and influential family in his small New England town, and is quickly swept away in a climate of wealth and privilege he can’t help but want to be a part of. When Corey’s boss, Liam Metarey, goes to work for the Presidential Campaign of Henry Bonwiller, a Ted Kennedy-esque scandal begins to unfold and Corey’s world is turned up-side down… This thought-provoking novel is insightful, smart and engaging. If you’ve been looking for your next great summer read, you need not look any further than this fantastic book.
February 14, 2011
Oh no! I ended up putting this book aside. I'm a sucker for the old ingenue sucked in the wealthy family and getting involved in a scandal plot, but this seemed to add nothing new. I'd read it all before and the pace seemed to move really slowly. I didn't enjoy the present-time story and felt when a third timeline was introduced I gave up. ALthough the past-time line was set in the 70's, it didn't feel like the seventies, it felt very 30-50's. I found it hard to believe in the 1970s a father and son would laboriously dig a ditch by hand, parting tree branches when employed to mend a drain. The old cars, the old fashioned senator, the wealthy paternalistic family looking after the local town, it didn't really fit with the Nixon era to me. The writing style was good. It was certainly readable and I began by charging through the pages but I found myself waiting and waiting for it to get going. I stopped caring about the characters, and then I stopped reading.
February 23, 2008
Ethan Canin just keeps getting better and better. This beautifully crafted novel, set in the 1970s, tells the story of Corey Sifter, a poor, bright, earnest young man drawn into the privileged circle of a wealthy liberal family, the Metareys, and their world of wealth and political machination. The characters are wonderfully realized and the story, which revolves around the rise and scandalous fall of a great Senator who's running for President, is very compelling. Not to mention oh-so-relevant to what's going on today.
December 19, 2008
Geoffrey Wolff's review in the New York Times brands the narrator of "America America" as "diffident and reliably gullible and unsmiling." While I would disagree with the last adjective--Corey Sifter surely has a sense of humor--I must admit my affection for Sifter's story is due in part to my own diffidence and gullibility. I keep being drawn to elements of our culture that show my pop naivete--Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love" truly moves me, for one example. Anyway, "America America" spoke to me. I read it at the same time as Bill Ayers published his corrective to the Palinesque script of SDS/Weatherman history (also in The NY Times), Neil Young's "Sugar Mountain-Live at Canterbury House 1968" was released, and I was remembering my participation in the Pentagon levitation of 1967 and my subsequent stint in Vietnam. "America America" connected me to all of that and beyond. Highly recommended.
October 18, 2008
Especially interesting in the election year, this is a novel about politics, ambition and family secrets. It kind of plods along and yet is suspenseful at the same time. I've been savoring it over the past few weeks (it is SO OVERDUE at the library) and enjoying dipping in and out of it. Interesting narrative technique and lovely writing, coupled with suspense makes it the kind of book I love. Definitely check this one out.
June 26, 2014
Review to follow............
November 1, 2011
I requested the book from the LT Early Reviewer program because I loved Canin’s book of short stories (“The Palace Thief”} and because the plot summary was irresistible: politics, scandal and small-town life in the Nixon era, with a working-class protagonist entangled with the rich and powerful – all the ingredients of a great read in the hands of a master of character development.
The result is a beautifully written book that perhaps reaches for more than it achieves. The story, told by decent, hard-working Corey Sifter, moves back and forth in time from the present to Corey’s teen-age years when he was witness to events that brought down a senator and all but destroyed the Metareys, the benevolent family of landed gentry that employed most of the town and took Corey under its wing. But despite the skill with which Canin tells the story, I found myself curiously uninvolved – skating along the surface rather than drawn in and caring deeply about the characters. In particular, the Metareys and Senator Bonwiller never came alive; their characters seemed to lack the depth that I admired in “The Palace Thief” and I was unmoved by their flaws and destructive behavior. On the other hand, Canin seemed more comfortable with Corey and his working-class family and neighbors, giving us meticulously observed descriptions of their lives, their work and their losses.
I admired this book but I didn’t love it. Canin is a fine writer but I thought the emotional wallop of his stories was missing here.
The result is a beautifully written book that perhaps reaches for more than it achieves. The story, told by decent, hard-working Corey Sifter, moves back and forth in time from the present to Corey’s teen-age years when he was witness to events that brought down a senator and all but destroyed the Metareys, the benevolent family of landed gentry that employed most of the town and took Corey under its wing. But despite the skill with which Canin tells the story, I found myself curiously uninvolved – skating along the surface rather than drawn in and caring deeply about the characters. In particular, the Metareys and Senator Bonwiller never came alive; their characters seemed to lack the depth that I admired in “The Palace Thief” and I was unmoved by their flaws and destructive behavior. On the other hand, Canin seemed more comfortable with Corey and his working-class family and neighbors, giving us meticulously observed descriptions of their lives, their work and their losses.
I admired this book but I didn’t love it. Canin is a fine writer but I thought the emotional wallop of his stories was missing here.
October 31, 2009
It took some patience, and yes, I'd even say "work", for me to get through this. It doesn't start to get interesting until about 60 pages in, and there are places throughout the book that drag a bit. But I'm glad I stayed with it. The story delves into a lot of murky areas with regard to politicians, class consciousness, family dynamics, and the price each individual pays for keeping secrets.
There is an especially pointed exploration of how the privileged classes view themselves and the lengths to which they will go to maintain illusions. Canin puts this so perfectly when the narrator says, "...and it struck me again...how diligently privilege had to work to remain oblivious to its cost."
For me that was the truest, most resonant line in the entire book.
I'm always hesitant to compare authors, but there are some similarities here with a Richard Russo novel. Russo is more entertaining and easier to follow. But the nature and scope of Canin's story is somewhat comparable to Russo's family sagas. Not a "read-alike", but maybe a "feel-alike". :-)
If you have a particularly ambitious book group, this one would be an excellent choice. The issues addressed are timeless and so quintessentially American.
There is an especially pointed exploration of how the privileged classes view themselves and the lengths to which they will go to maintain illusions. Canin puts this so perfectly when the narrator says, "...and it struck me again...how diligently privilege had to work to remain oblivious to its cost."
For me that was the truest, most resonant line in the entire book.
I'm always hesitant to compare authors, but there are some similarities here with a Richard Russo novel. Russo is more entertaining and easier to follow. But the nature and scope of Canin's story is somewhat comparable to Russo's family sagas. Not a "read-alike", but maybe a "feel-alike". :-)
If you have a particularly ambitious book group, this one would be an excellent choice. The issues addressed are timeless and so quintessentially American.
September 25, 2013
In the style of the Great American Novels, this delicious sink-your-teeth-into-it read is a rare blend of a coming-of-age story and a political thriller. The themes are plentiful and ambitious, beautifully summed up by the narrator himself in the final pages:"What have I learned? The old verities, mostly: that love for our children is what sustains us; that people are not what they seem; that those we hate bear some wound equal to our own; that power is desperation's salve, and that this fact as much as any is what dooms and dooms us. That we never learn the truth." The last sentence is perhaps most intriguing to me, especially for a novel that masterfully and continuously weaves together snippets from different time periods in order to give us clues about the events and characters at hand. We think we finally have a clear picture, only to realize it hinges on as assumption or a hypothetical. History is subjectivity. I also have to add that this is one of the most heartfelt and honest portrays of an adolescent boy that I've ever read, and his relationship to the two "father" figures in his life makes for supreme writing.
March 7, 2009
A great American novel. I find it unusual to read a novel that neither tries to create an overly romantic view of American life, nor a snarky nod to its shattered idealism. Having just come out of a decade where the word "values" had been manipulated into being synonymous with political will and the so-called righteous American stance, the essence of "America America" is about exploring a more fundamental and richer meaning of the word. What happened to "values" meaning hard work and class identity and the good old Democratic ticket?
Philosophically, it's a well-timed novel. Those writers and thinkers who clue the rest of us into the true zeitgest of our time, are saying that we've reached the end of a thirty-year age of political conservatism. The novel, which mostly takes place in the early 70's, documents the last time there was a significant sea change in the country's political will.
Let's raise a glass of champagne to the next thirty years.
Philosophically, it's a well-timed novel. Those writers and thinkers who clue the rest of us into the true zeitgest of our time, are saying that we've reached the end of a thirty-year age of political conservatism. The novel, which mostly takes place in the early 70's, documents the last time there was a significant sea change in the country's political will.
Let's raise a glass of champagne to the next thirty years.
August 24, 2011
Corey Sifer is the son of high class parents, is an ambitious young and intelligent man. He attends a prestigious school, because of the grace of his parents. He works on a yard, but soon he is called to work as an assistant for the Senator Henry Bonwiller, who is running for president in New York. The love his mom has for him is overwhelming and she is hesitant to send him away, but he obliged because he knows that this is a great opportunity for him. The Metaries are a family that has a bad reputation in politics but Corey finds himself interested in a girl from that family. As he leaves his school to travel to another school, on behalf of Henry, he discovers the true meaning of politics, friendships and morality. I had high expectations after reading the rave reviews, but it was just mediocre to me.
July 11, 2008
This book has a few characteristics that classically appeal to me: wealthy characters, family, a tiny slice of boarding school, and a Northeastern setting. The narration can be a little ponderous at times, but the splicing of the different narratives works really well, even in places propelling me along much faster than the voice itself (wanting to go back to the next piece of the story, but never sure which strand Canin will take up next). Parts of the story were very moving, and, true to its title, the book does seem to resonate on a greater level than just these characters, set as it is during a time that many claim was when the nation lost its innocence.
Sidenote: The author is going to be at Politics and Prose on Monday if anyone wants to go (the 14th)!
Sidenote: The author is going to be at Politics and Prose on Monday if anyone wants to go (the 14th)!
July 6, 2008
Whew, thank goodness. I've started and tossed aside four or five books in the last two weeks, not sure whether they just sucked or whether I'd developed a brain disease that affected my concentration. But once I started this one, I was sucked in for two days. Thanks to Mr. Canin, I know I'm not suffering from early senility. What a great book! Class, family, politics, innocence, corruption, and one of the great dog characters in recent literature.
April 30, 2008
I really love his short stories, but I find his novels to be lacking something. In this case, it just felt long & overly drawn out. The characters were good & I love his writing, but the plot didn't sustain a book of this length. Try "The Palace Thief" or "Emperor of the Air" instead.
August 27, 2009
There was this stuff happening and this other stuff and these people were talking and some times a person flew an airplane and they drove cars and there were rich people and people of average economic status and there was a bunch of political stuff goin on.
January 20, 2021
This is a 10-star book in a five-star world. This exceptionally well-written novel by Ethan Canin has it all: a compelling plot, fully-developed characters that just pop off the page, and a wise philosophical message about how we reconcile our life's dreams and hopes with what really happens.
It's the early 1970s and Corey Sifter, a working-class 16-year-old who actually thrives on physical labor, is helping his father repair a busted sewer line on the massive estate of Liam Metarey in Saline, New York. Meteray is quite taken with young Corey and hires him to work that summer on the estate, known as Aberdeen West. Corey embraces the opportunity, and before too long, Metarey makes a truly extraordinary offer to the young man—to send him to an elite boarding school all-expenses paid. Meanwhile, Metarey is a key player in the 1972 presidential campaign of Senator Henry Bonwiller, until something absolutely horrific happens that derails not only Bonwiller's campaign but also life as everyone then knew it.
The novel takes place in two time periods: modern day and the early 1970s with Corey narrating in the first person for both. Time slides back and forth and sometimes in an almost zig-zag pattern, but it always makes sense and serves to move the plot, as well as to create little cliffhangers. More than anything, managing the time swings so expertly speaks to the extraordinary writing capability of Ethan Canin.
The sophisticated storytelling, multilayered plot, and complex characters work in harmony to create a magnificent novel I will long remember.
It's the early 1970s and Corey Sifter, a working-class 16-year-old who actually thrives on physical labor, is helping his father repair a busted sewer line on the massive estate of Liam Metarey in Saline, New York. Meteray is quite taken with young Corey and hires him to work that summer on the estate, known as Aberdeen West. Corey embraces the opportunity, and before too long, Metarey makes a truly extraordinary offer to the young man—to send him to an elite boarding school all-expenses paid. Meanwhile, Metarey is a key player in the 1972 presidential campaign of Senator Henry Bonwiller, until something absolutely horrific happens that derails not only Bonwiller's campaign but also life as everyone then knew it.
The novel takes place in two time periods: modern day and the early 1970s with Corey narrating in the first person for both. Time slides back and forth and sometimes in an almost zig-zag pattern, but it always makes sense and serves to move the plot, as well as to create little cliffhangers. More than anything, managing the time swings so expertly speaks to the extraordinary writing capability of Ethan Canin.
The sophisticated storytelling, multilayered plot, and complex characters work in harmony to create a magnificent novel I will long remember.
November 15, 2020
A well written and crafted story told in first person by Corey Sifter that covers the years in 1960 when he was a teenager to the early 2000's when he is an adult. It is a story that he was a part of when he was younger, but didn't fully understand till later. This story was challenging because in was told in a non-linear fashion showing his perspective of the story he was telling at different ages.
May 18, 2022
DNF - I live in upstate NY and I work in politics so I thought that I would love this book but I just can’t do it. Nothing is happening and I am bored with Corey.
June 7, 2024
I loved this. History, politics, mystery all in one.
May 6, 2016
This story, while beautifully written, is difficult to classify. Is it a historical fiction piece? Is it a murder mystery? A coming-of-age story? A political diatribe? A rags-to-riches yarn? Actually, a title as broad as America, America is fitting because it takes on all of these things at once. The shocking part is that it actually works. It doesn’t feel like a reach. In fact, it works quite well by employing something rarely used anymore – the art of subtlety.
The characters - beginning with the first-person protagonist, Corey Sifter - are exceptionally well done. You really do feel that you know them so well - feeling what they feel and sensing what they sense. It is a remarkable art of character development that Canin successfully uses to pull the reader in. In addition to that, he employs a master’s touch of laying out the atmosphere of Western New York - from its culture to the look of the trees and the heaviness of the air. The book is as much art as it is story. As someone who grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, I can tell you that Canin’s portrayal of that part of the country is spot on. While some reviewers had a problem with Canin jumping back and forth in time throughout the story, I think he did a great job of leading the reader through it without needing to resort to labeling each change with a date. In fact, the layered structure makes the story more powerful and interesting than if it had been laid out chronologically.
Canin also does a wonderful job weaving the fictional Senator Henry Bonwiller into the actual Presidential campaign of 1972. He was able to insert his candidate in among the real-life history without tearing it all apart – an admirable accomplishment in itself. It felt organic rather than shoehorned. Anyone interested in writing historical fiction should pay particular attention to how this story does it so well. However, nobody reading this book is going to have any trouble figuring out which side of the political aisle Ethan Canin falls on. I’m an independent thinker and I like it when writers provoke me to reassess my own beliefs, but it is certainly not lost on me that the book was released in the middle of a Presidential election season. I don’t mind authors inserting issues they find important into their fiction, but frankly, Canin gets a bit carried away and beats the reader over the head with it, especially near the end. It is the one flaw of the book that it feels like a bit of a rant and sticks out from everything else. I don’t mind the message, but a bit of a softer touch might have blended better with the rest of the story.
The political pandering of the book notwithstanding, I really don’t have anything bad to say about the story. It’s not a thriller or a murder mystery. While elements of both are in the story, they are really just another form of scenery. And while there is little real action or dramatic tension, I never felt like the story dragged. That says something for the writing, because that is no easy feat. The real story is the assent of Corey Sifter and how he grows to understand all of the people involved in his life, although sometimes painfully late. America, America does a beautiful job of showing just how the coming-of-age of a young man might look within the womb of a struggle for national power. His ultimate lesson is that he has to learn how to learn - and it is a neverending struggle. This is certainly a book worth reading, if for no other reason than to enjoy the rich characters and lush scenery. There is a lot to experience in this book – you almost need to read it more than once to take it all in. It certainly has its place on the shelves of any reader looking for an artful, character-centered book filled with beautiful prose.
The characters - beginning with the first-person protagonist, Corey Sifter - are exceptionally well done. You really do feel that you know them so well - feeling what they feel and sensing what they sense. It is a remarkable art of character development that Canin successfully uses to pull the reader in. In addition to that, he employs a master’s touch of laying out the atmosphere of Western New York - from its culture to the look of the trees and the heaviness of the air. The book is as much art as it is story. As someone who grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, I can tell you that Canin’s portrayal of that part of the country is spot on. While some reviewers had a problem with Canin jumping back and forth in time throughout the story, I think he did a great job of leading the reader through it without needing to resort to labeling each change with a date. In fact, the layered structure makes the story more powerful and interesting than if it had been laid out chronologically.
Canin also does a wonderful job weaving the fictional Senator Henry Bonwiller into the actual Presidential campaign of 1972. He was able to insert his candidate in among the real-life history without tearing it all apart – an admirable accomplishment in itself. It felt organic rather than shoehorned. Anyone interested in writing historical fiction should pay particular attention to how this story does it so well. However, nobody reading this book is going to have any trouble figuring out which side of the political aisle Ethan Canin falls on. I’m an independent thinker and I like it when writers provoke me to reassess my own beliefs, but it is certainly not lost on me that the book was released in the middle of a Presidential election season. I don’t mind authors inserting issues they find important into their fiction, but frankly, Canin gets a bit carried away and beats the reader over the head with it, especially near the end. It is the one flaw of the book that it feels like a bit of a rant and sticks out from everything else. I don’t mind the message, but a bit of a softer touch might have blended better with the rest of the story.
The political pandering of the book notwithstanding, I really don’t have anything bad to say about the story. It’s not a thriller or a murder mystery. While elements of both are in the story, they are really just another form of scenery. And while there is little real action or dramatic tension, I never felt like the story dragged. That says something for the writing, because that is no easy feat. The real story is the assent of Corey Sifter and how he grows to understand all of the people involved in his life, although sometimes painfully late. America, America does a beautiful job of showing just how the coming-of-age of a young man might look within the womb of a struggle for national power. His ultimate lesson is that he has to learn how to learn - and it is a neverending struggle. This is certainly a book worth reading, if for no other reason than to enjoy the rich characters and lush scenery. There is a lot to experience in this book – you almost need to read it more than once to take it all in. It certainly has its place on the shelves of any reader looking for an artful, character-centered book filled with beautiful prose.
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