American Pop

by Snowden Wright, Nicola Manuppelli (Translator)

Una grande saga familiare, la vicenda di ascesa e declino dei Forster, fondatori della prima importante azienda di bibite al mondo. L'America fra le due guerre, i ruggenti anni Venti, i drammi borghesi, i vizi, i balli, le sfrenatezze e, soprattutto, il gusto dolce e frizzante di una bevanda in bottiglia. Un romanzo che ripercorre, muovendosi tra realtà e finzione, la nascita e l'avvento della cultura pop negli Stati Uniti.

Houghton Forster, figlio di immigrati britannici giunti negli Stati Uniti nella seconda metà dell'Ottocento, è sempre stato ambizioso e dotato di fiuto per gli affari, fin dai tempi in cui era un semplice ragazzino di Batesville, Mississippi, e lavorava dodici ore al giorno nell'emporio del padre. Quando si innamora della figlia di un ricco armatore di New Orleans, quella Annabelle Teague che contro ogni sensata previsione diventerà sua moglie, Houghton sta già studiando la ricetta di una nuova bevanda che in pochi anni lo trasformerà nel fondatore di una delle aziende di maggiore successo del paese: la Panola Cola Company. Che cosa c'è, in fondo, di più americano della soda? Così, mentre una nazione giovane e intraprendente entra in una nuova era piena di speranza e bollicine, i Forster divengono una delle famiglie più in vista degli Stati Uniti. Ma "le famiglie americane hanno parabole ascendenti e discendenti", scrisse Hawthorne, e l'impero costruito da quell'uomo venuto dal basso è destinato a subire, nelle successive generazioni, scosse e tempeste. American Pop mescola storia e fiction, dramma e soap opera, satira e ritratto di costume, in un romanzo frizzante come la bibita che ne è protagonista, e attraverso le alterne peripezie di una famiglia racconta il rapporto dell'uomo contemporaneo con la fortuna, l'amore e la storia.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Audiobook, Literary Fiction, Southern, Adult

400 pages, Paperback

First published February 5, 2019

About the author

Snowden Wright is the author of the novel American Pop, a Wall Street Journal WSJ+ Book of the Month, selection for Barnes & Noble’s “Discover Great New Writers” program, Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Okra Pick, and NPR Favorite Book of the Year. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Columbia University, he has written for The Atlantic, Salon, Esquire, The Millions, and the New York Daily News, among other publications, and previously worked as a fiction reader at The New Yorker, Esquire, and The Paris Review.

Wright was the Visiting Writer and Prose Faculty at the 2021 Longleaf Writers Conference, and his debut novel, Play Pretty Blues, won the 2012 Summer Literary Seminars’ Graywolf Prize. Recipient of the Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellowship from the Carson McCullers Center, he has attended writing residencies at Yaddo, Escape to Create, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Tusen Takk, Monson Arts, and the Hambidge Center. Wright lives in Yazoo County, Mississippi. His third novel, The Queen City Detective Agency, is forthcoming from HarperCollins on August 13, 2024.

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earlier that week, when he was explaining that Maximilian Everard controlled more than a fifth of the votes in the state via his sway over his white friends who in turn held sway over the Negro tenants farming their land, Paul Johnson had warned Montgomery about the evening they were going to spend at Bluest Heaven, noting, “Those boys there will be true Delta.” Monty had understood the phrase to refer to any white plantation owner from the “Valley of the Lower Mississippi” who was socially entitled, financially comfortable and, as if Zeno had devised a paradox concerning Kentucky bourbon, perpetually fixed halfway between sober and drunk. He knew those weren’t the only paradoxes of their breed. True Deltans were also, simultaneously, ostentatious and genteel, careful of debt but careless with risk, patrician planters and rugged frontiersmen, as hedonisticly liberal as they were politically conservative—the most Mississippian of Mississippians. In the main parlor, a semicircular room with ceilings eighteen feet high and alcoves built into the walls to exhibit marble statuary, Monty was introduced to a group of men who made him realize he’d barely understood the half of it.

American Pop follows a century, or so, of America through the experiences of the Forster family, from the arrival of paterfamilias, Tewksbury, a doctor transformed by immigration into a pharmacist, to Houghton, his ambitious, hard-working son, the one who came up with the formula for what would become the best-selling carbonated drink in the nation, to his children, Montgomery, the politician with a secret, Lance, very bright, but with a talent for self-doubt and destruction, Ramsey, Lance’s twin, with secrets of her own, one of which will kill her, and Harold, the innocent of the crew, possessed of a sweet nature, and a deficit of understanding. And then there is the generation after them, with complications and challenges aplenty.


Snowden Wright - image from his Twitter page

The opening scene is a tracking shot, an operatic overture, the reader’s eye following this Forster, until another enters the scene, then we follow that one until he or she changes direction and we spy another, until we have met them all, or most anyway, and been offered a snippet of who they all are. It is breathtaking. I can hardly wait to see it done properly on screen.

It’s a big story, an American story, but with seven-league boots that take us to Europe, South America, and Asia, from the trenches of World War I in northern France to stylish Paris on the eve of another war, from Hollywood to Greenwich Village. There are Doughboys and Nazis, socialites and Senators, smoke-filled rooms and a “This-is-the-way-it-is” scene worthy of Ned Beatty as Arthur Jensen in Network. But mostly it is a song of the South.

The South has, to put it lightly, a fraught past, with slavery and the Civil War and, more recently, racism, misogyny, homophobia, and anti-intellectualism. We have a perpetual BOGO sale on social issues. In American Pop, I tried to grapple with those issues, not only as they relate to the South, but also as they relate to the country as a whole. There’s a reason I didn’t title the novel Southern Pop. The South’s problems are also America’s problems, and that’s never been clearer than it is in our current political situation. - from The Millions interview

An early cross-racial allegiance seemed a bit of a stretch to my 21st century eyes, but I could see it in an earlier age, in a way like the butler, Stevens’, dedication to Lord Darlington in The Remains of the Day. Romantic elements cross racial boundaries, some in a dark way, another in a more hopeful vein. There is a delicious scene in which a black driver offers his VIP passenger a vision of how black people see the reality the uppers create. And, as one would expect, there will be some coffee in the cream.

Matters of love abound, from wind-blown trysts to the longing of a lifetime, from classic love of the usual sort, beautifully drawn, even celestial at times, to love of the forbidden sort, movingly, achingly portrayed. Love is found, lost, and appears in diverse sorts, from the romantic to the familial, from love of land to love of money and power, from love based on friendship to love based on admiration. Decisions, forks in the dirt road of characters’ life choices, turn on matters of the heart.

Decades later, over drinks at The Brook one evening, William K. Vanderbilt II would jokingly ask, “What gave you the nerve to even try to land a Teague?” to which Houghton answered that it was the same thing that let their ancestors think about leaving the old country, the same thing that helped those first settlers wrest farmland from the wilderness, the same thing giving their waiter that look of defiance tempered with envy, but on August 6, 1890, the smell of honeysuckle flowers in the air and the taste of apple pulp on his lips, the most profundity Houghton could muster while kissing Annabelle was the thought, Thank God this happened sometime before I die.

The book opens with a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne:

Families are always rising and falling in America. But, I believe, we ought to examine more closely the how and why of it, which in the end revolves around life and how you live it.

When you cover a century of America you had better populate it with interesting characters or it might read like a history book. This American century begins in the 1870s and concludes in 1986. Tewksbury, who begins the family’s ascent, is a joyful character, not at all put out by being denied his profession in the New World. He finds another way, starting a pharmacy. His son, Houghton, as a young man, may put you in mind of George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life, a good-natured soul, with purpose, focus, and a work ethic most of us can only marvel at. It is no wonder he provides the rocket fuel for the Forsters’ ascent, becoming the scion of PanCola, our stand-in for Coke.

Soda has always seemed to me such an American drink. It is to this country what wine is to France, tea to England, beer to Germany, or toilet water to misbehaving dogs. Soda is especially pervasive in the South, where I’m from and the region I love exploring, scrutinizing, praising, and criticizing in my work. As Nancy Lemann wrote in the sublime Lives of the Saints, “Southerners need carbonation.” Soda, I figured, would enable me to wed the national and the regional, America and the South, and examine the relationship between them. - from The Millions interview

The failings of some of those who come after Houghton offer us a view of familial as well as corporate descent. There are costs to being rich, to being born into a family that rules a commercial empire, that is mentioned in the same breath as Hearsts and Rockefellers. There are expectations, and things that are not allowed, along with the means to erase evidence of dark deeds or errors, all existing within a world that proclaims its righteousness while often indulging in private excess.

One thing I would have preferred for American Pop was for it to have been longer, not a common gripe. When Wright allows himself time to go at his characters at length the results are extraordinary. There is a smorgasbord of Forsters, by birth and marriage, to be sampled here, and I felt short-changed when each was not given as much attention as some others, seeing wonderful opportunities cut short. For a book of such broad scope to come in at (in my ARE) a mere 384 pages seems a slight to what might have been. Don’t get me wrong. I think this is a marvelous read, but it is so amazing at times that I wanted the same amazingness to have been applied more liberally to the characters who got less ink. Not much of a gripe, I know. (And one I expect might be addressed if this book is made into a TV mini-series. A theatrical film would, no doubt, cut characters rather than flesh them out.) There was one other item that jarred a bit. One character goes abroad as a way of filling a gap, recovering from serial disappointments. This seemed pretty clear, but Wright opted to tell us overtly exactly why this character was heading elsewhere. Seemed unnecessary, and a tort of telling over showing. There is a lot of flash-backing and flash-forwarding. Sometimes it worked perfectly, but at other times it seemed a shortcut in place of further writing about a character, spoilerish in a way.

Wright gives the novel the patina of a family memoir.

My first conception of the book was for it to be the opposite of Capote‘s “nonfiction novel” In Cold Blood. I wanted American Pop to be fictional nonfiction. To achieve that effect, I used certain techniques of nonfiction, such as source citations, quotes from interviews, and the use of specific dates and times, similar to what Michael Chabon did in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Susanna Clarke in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. – from The Millions interview

It is a story about story-telling, personal and global, and how our sense of who we are, our nostalgia, our supposedly shared values and history, constitute a concoction that, while it may have a foundation in the pure water of reality, of this-then-that, is flavored by the secret ingredients of lies, half-lies, and incomplete truths, with a splash of wickedness, and the effervescence of the truly marvelous. One of the first great books of 2019, it might be better to think of American Pop as American BOOM! Can I get another bottle please?

On his way back downstairs, Robert passed a rare photograph from 1910’s notorious “PanCola Summit,” a weeklong motivational sales meeting. The photo featured hundreds of Panhandlers crowded in front of a platform. According to the expose “The Church of Pan, or the Cult of Pan?” written by a British reporter who infiltrated the event, it was less of a pep rally and more of an indoctrination, creating mindless automatons whose only goal in life was to sell sugar water. “This wasn’t the country I’d envisioned,” began the expose, if Robert remembered correctly. “It was the South, a country within a country. But which was more real, the exterior one or the interior, the body or the soul?”

Review first posted – February 8, 2019

Publication date – February 5, 2019

December, 2019 - NPR names American Pop as one of their Best Books of 2019



=============================EXTRA STUFF

Links to the author’s personal, Twitter, GR, and FB pages

American Pop is Wright’s second novel. His first, Play Pretty Blues (The Life of Robert Johnson), was published in 2013. His writing has appeared in Atlantic, Esquire, Salon, The Millions, the New York Daily News, Esquire, The Paris Review, and probably plenty more.

The opening of the novel, read by Robert Petkoff

Interviews
-----Print – The Millions - Southern Discomfort: The Millions Interviews Snowden Wright - by Matt Burgess
-----Print – Clarion Ledger - A soft drink empire, outrageous family, cola hunters: Snowden Wright on 'American Pop' - by Jana Hoops
-----Audio – NPR - Author Snowden Wright Chronicles Fictional Southern Cola Dynasty In Novel 'American Pop'
-----Audio – Writer’s Bone - Friday Morning Coffee: American Pop Author Snowden Wright - from about 6:00

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yes, this is full of irony and witticisms, and yes, this is s generational saga. Three to be exact, which besides the mystery of the hidden ingredient, are the only exact items to be noted. Everything else is confusing. This book skip around from generation, forward and backward and everything in between. There are historical happenings, family scandals galore, but it seems just when something gained my interest, was on the cupse of s breakthrough, it switched to a different timeline.

I struggled with this book for almost a week. The beginning certainly gained my interest, but after that initial burst, I couldn't maintain my apt concentration. Which is what this book requires, apt concentration. Well, it got the better of me, I skinned the last third. Future readers may have better luck. At least I hope so.

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Panola Cola, carbonated sugar water with a secret ingredient, is the quintessential American product that propels a Mississippi family into prominence. American Pop tells the multi-generational story of the Forster family as they rise and fall over the course of one hundred years. There are accidents, suicide, and struggles with sexuality, possible murder, questions of paternity and the ultimate loss of the family fortune. Employing a non-linear narrative, this novel jumps around in time, occasionally, with jarring speed. It possesses that dark strangeness singular to the south but it’s not quite Southern Gothic. There is a certain amount of humor but the characterization felt a bit thin. I would have liked to have spent more time with each character to get to know them better. And, it is curious that very little attention is paid to the cultural events of the twentieth century other than the world wars, perhaps the exceedingly wealthy live untouched by these things.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are going to write a "Southern" book and you are a white person and the book is about white people, you should sit down with that idea for a while. You should really think about it. If that book is going to be set during the Jim Crow era and is about wealthy, tragic white people, you should think even harder. For a very long time, Southern fiction has meant this kind of story. Sure, we occasionally let in stories about poor, struggling white people, but mostly it is about the gentried South, the decline of old money or the rise of new money, a kind of American-ized version of the British manor story. Like Downton Abbey except with racism.

This is a book that jumps around in time like a child playing hopscotch. It gleefully tosses you around and once you're situated in one time it must also remind you how long it is till that other thing happens and how long it's been since that last thing happened (sometimes it will list all these things with exact years that have passed and are to come). And yet, this book despite moving through 100 years or so of history, this book doesn't seem to be aware of the outside world except for two world wars. It certainly doesn't seem to be aware of the fact that the Confederacy ever existed or that racism powers the entire system it dwells within. But you, the reader, know and so it remains like an itch at the back of your brain, this knowledge that outside of these stories that we are told are tragic that a much larger, much more tragic story is happening just steps away.

As is often the case with this kind of book all the black characters (and there are only a small number who appear for a brief period) are the help. And all of them are involved in (or are the product of) a probably-not-fully-consensual relationship with a powerful white man who employs them. At one moment in the story we are supposed to be horrified by such a thing, but at another moment we're given to believe that a young, poor, black woman is happily involved with a white man who has the ability to get her fired at any time, and that her willingness to do whatever he tells her isn't totally disgusting. (Spoiler: it IS totally disgusting.)

The book opens telling us that this family is a tragic story and because these are white people, it seems that the easiest way to make their story tragic is to make a few of them queer. Which, okay, I guess, but the queerness of these two characters always rubbed me wrong. While their stories are presented as basically opposites, they are, ultimately, the same story. And it is one of the very few versions of historical queerness we ever get to see. (You mostly get 1) One tragic love which you never recover from and are haunted by forever but must always hide, or 2) One true love which you are prevented from being with and are haunted by forever but must always hide, or 3) Openly queer and killed for it.) Like the book's view of the South, this doesn't feel real, it feels like part of a romantic tradition that obscures any stories that are actually interesting.

Outside of these two major criticisms, I found that the interest I took early on lost momentum as the story continued. The style of jumping through time sometimes works, in one early chapter it feels like the camera moving around a large party in an Altman movie, perfectly timed to catch all kinds of small insights and callbacks. But many of these chapters toss the reader around like a pinball machine. Even though the style was mostly about moving around constantly, I preferred the stretches where we got to sit with one character in one time and place, the spinning grew tedious and started to leave me dizzy. The characters who get the best of the longer stories are the ones we care about most, but then you get just glimpses of them, and not enough for much satisfaction in finally seeing their full arcs. We also know most everything that will happen so early that there isn't much surprise. (There are some things the book seems to think are surprises, but I saw them all coming quite early.) The book feels both overstuffed and underfed, containing so many things but not enough of the important ones.

And yet, I finished it. I suppose I was hoping for something rewarding from the final generation of Forsters, but their stories were the flattest. This book has very little to say about class or the rise of new money or the creation of the new American corporation, which is a shame since it had all of those opportunities. Instead it tells us the kind of story we have seen many times before, without the kind of modern insight that would have made it rewarding.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this in a Goodreads giveaway!

American Pop sounded so interesting, a book about a fictional family the Forsters, founders of the worlds first major soft drink company Panola Cola. The house of Forster is built on scandal, backstabbing and lies.

That's sounds amazing, I really wish I had read that book but unfortunately what I got was a jumbled mess. First of all there were WAY too many characters and you guys know I hate books that have more than 5 main characters. American Pop had at least 14 main characters. It was too much. My second problem with the book was it was confusing. If you're gonna write a book with a million characters at least tell the story in a linear timeline. This book hopped from 1920's to the 2000's to 1950's back to the 1920's with stops in 1890's and 1980's. I never knew what decade I was reading. I lost the plot within the first 100 pages and wasn't able to find it again until the last 50 pages.

I didn't like it but that doesn't mean other readers won't like it. This book just wasn't for me.

[Faith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn’t handle the writing style, which was sometimes witty but was more often trying too hard to be witty. It also felt like the author wrote various scenes from the lives of the characters on index cards, tossed them into the air and then wrote the book in the order in which he randomly picked up the cards. Ultimately it was too much work for the limited pleasure I was getting from the book. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Rebecca Renner]

I'm not leaving a star rating, because I don't like hurting authors' ratings like that, but I couldn't stand the prose. Too many characters were introduced too early on in this book, and the perspective kept hopping between them after only a paragraph or two. I had to bail.

[Melissa Crytzer Fry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the overall storyline – fresh and original – a fictionalization of the time leading up to and after “The Cola Wars,” set in the south.

I was entranced for the first few chapters, sucked in by the gorgeous writing, and interested in the characters (though I had no idea just how many there would be!). As the story progressed, however, the structure of the book continued to confound me, bopping backwards and forwards, forwards and backwards … and like a shaken cola, the effect was … well, fizzying and dizzying. I was never quite sure what year we were in, what had already happened, what was prophesied to happen in the future. Even the cast of characters was hard for me to wrap my mind around, until the very end.

And while the idea was clever to include notes from biographers and historians, as well as article snippets about the fictional cola company, they often came across as historical information dumps, stopping the flow of the story.

I would definitely read the author’s next book, and wonder if this is just a case of “not the book for me”? Because, when I walked away, I really did enjoy the overall ‘bones’ of the story he created, as well as the memorable characters, even if they were not robust enough to form strong emotional connections with (perhaps due to sheer quantity of characters?). And there were moments of writing brilliance throughout.

If you are not a fan of extremely long sentences, this may not be the book for you. If you enjoy literary family sagas with vast arrays of characters and smart writing – this MAY be the book for you!

[Richard Dominguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

American Pop, I found was an excellent read that kept me turning pages, as I found myself wishing it wouldn't end. The Forsters owners of a soft drink empire (Panola Cola) are the focus characters of the story. My first indication that I was enjoying the book was it's likeness to a world I was familiar with. The Forsters (like the Kennedys) are a dynasty, much like their Panola Cola is much like the soft drinks that are popular worldwide. I also found that for all their prestige and money, they were in many ways very relatable characters, with dreams of success and the failures, pains and dissolutions that life has a tendency to heave on us all.
Snowden Wright does an excellent job of giving us a view of the darker, seedier (almost gothic) side of the affluent South, which reminded me of "The Garden of Good and Evil". With plenty of enemies and skeletons in the closet American Pop moves at a great pace (due to it's short style chapters).
I would be negligent to not mention that amazingly throughout the story Snowden manages to maintain a sense of humor that is subtle, poignant and undeniable funny.
American Pop (at least for me) is a precautionary story, that not only tells the story of the rise and fall of an empire and it's perpetrators, but reminds us of the pitfalls of power, money and untethered goals, while managing to not take itself too seriously.
An absolute recommendation for anyone who enjoys a good read regardless of the genre.

Finally, I want to thank Snowden Wright and Goodreads for the contest that I was lucky enough to win and the book I have so thoroughly enjoyed reading.

[WillowRaven · Rating 5 out of 5]

**WARNING!!!! May Contain Spoiler Alerts!!**

BOOK TITLE: American Pop
AUTHOR: Snowden Wright
FORMAT: Paperback (ARC)
PAGE COUNT: 386 pages
BOOK GENRE(S): family drama, fiction, historical fiction, realistic fiction, cultural-USA, location-USA


**Categories for Rating**
see post at my blog for rating system:
https://the-book-nest.blogspot.com/20...

A. Characters: 8/9
B. Cover Art & Design: 9/9
C. Enjoyment: 7.5/8
D. Plot (Storyline): 8/8
E. Writing Style & Editing: 8/7.5
F. Variable: Genre, Relating (optional): 8/9

**Pros: Enjoyable, believable story, nice flow in/out of historical events in regards to how the family related to them and as a backdrop for the story. Characters had depth, and there were some societal taboos that came in to play, that added interest and intrigue to the overall book. Definite diversity between the characters, whether it was social background, race, sexual orientation, station in life and more.

**Cons: It sometimes got a little ... wordy ... even though I understood that it was the author's way of giving the "old Southern genteel" feel to the way the story was being told.

**Honorable Mentions: You could tell that the author did his homework not only in regards to the historical events, however also in regards to the rise of 'certain' soda companies ( ::cough cough:: ) and their falls, and using it as a sort of rivalry backdrop to the "sensation" of PanCola. At times it felt like I was actually reading non-fiction about Pepsi and/or Coca-Cola!!

**Memorable Quote(s):

His father pulled Branchwater into his arms and pressed his cheek against his son's hair. "Because both of you are my children. You and your brother. Don't you know that?" he said. "You can't choose who you love and neither can blood." He pushed his son's head back so he could look him directly in the eyes. "Blood doesn't make a family. Love does."

**Personal Like/Dislike: Again, my only real "gripe" was the wordiness, however I *do* understand why it was written that way and appreciate the effort the author took to try and inject a feel of authenticity for the time frame of the book. I don't think I'd want to read a bunch of "wordy" books, however once in a great while ... not a big problem.

**Does this book "fit in" to the genre(s) it's listed under? Yes, it does. Very much so.


**Final Notes: I had received this book as part of a giveaway via the publisher, about 2 years ago. I am glad I finally took the time to read it, and sorry that it had taken so long. I want to say, the cover art is wonderful and really gives a good feel for the story that is found on the pages in between. The author has a superb skill for description, and for helping you feel like you were there, observing it all first-hand. While I am not a fast reader, I will say that, while the story overall is not fast-paced, it is steady, with very few - if any - real lulls.

For those who enjoy historical fiction with some pop culture mixed in, with good characters, a solid story which moves as a steady - albeit not fast - pace, with a chuckle or two mixed in, I would recommend this book. I would caution, however, if you have issues (i.e. "triggers") with taboo issues such as inter-racial and/or same sex relationships, you might want to think before reading. While they are not all over the book, there are a few instances of both, however, they are very much a part of the story and helps to relay the importance of these connections within the overall historical setting(s).

In closing, I'd like to thank the author and publisher for allowing me the opportunity to read this book via the giveaway. I understand that a review is/was not required, and I give honest review of my own


Final Rating: 8.08 / 8.41 = 4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 4.5 (rounded up to 5) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Notes on Rating: Overall, a fair rating. Not a lot of minuses to the overall book.


This review can also be found here:
https://the-book-nest.blogspot.com/20...

[Christine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, this is a DNF For me. I actually won this through librarything, but I couldn't get through it. I didn't like the set-up of the chapters.i didn't like the racist tone of the book. I'm so sad, because I was really looking forward to reading this novel. However, I just couldn't do it. Sigh.

[Jes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only four books have made me cry.
This was the fourth.

I haven’t read a family epic this good since Middlesex. So. Good. Just so good. Take your time and savor this one.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has elements of being written as a “real” history/biography of this fictional family, with the author citing to other interviews or the writings of the characters. I wish it had leaned into that a bit more. The level of detail and the dialogue is so novel-like for most of the book that it made we wish that the author had really gone for the fake biography or that this was just kept as a straight novel.

As noted by other reviews, this book jumps around in the timeline quite a bit. I found this more jarring than confusing. It was frustrating as a novel and again, would be a weird way to write a nonfiction history if you’re looking at it from that angle. I do think this book would have been better with a narrower focus and cast.

Additionally, in the sphere of more minor complaints, the soda in this book, PanCola, is clearly taking the place of Coke in soda history. The book notes that people in the southeast call all sodas “Pans,” PanCola too, a failed reinvention, is clearly New Coke, PanCola was the first to use the “secret formula” idea, and at one point a character orders a “rum and pan.” Despite this, Coke still exists in this world. I found that to be an odd choice because every time PanCola borrowed something from the history of Coke, I found myself thinking “well what was Coke doing then?” Maybe this wouldn’t be an issue for others. I’m from Atlanta so know more about Coke than the average person, but that choice did pull me out of the story.

There’s definitely some interesting and enjoyable moments in this book but ultimately it didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

[Stuart Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore this novel. I love the playfulness, dexterity, and beauty of Wright’s writing, and all of the gorgeous turns of phrase and tiny details in this book; I love the tragic depth of each of the Forster family members; I love the elastic way this novel plays with time, and the way Wright enlivens so many throwaway characters and details with a description a few sentence long of some detail of that person that we’ll never come back to, but which serve to enrich the world building that much more.

This is one of two novels I find myself re-reading at least once a year, which I realized recently is my actual metric for what my favorite books are. Which ones do I want to come back to? Which ones make me happy to read or listen to? I can pretty confidently say this is my all-time favorite historical literary fiction novel.

[Sarah at Sarah's Bookshelves · Rating 3 out of 5]

[3.5 stars]

Thanks to William Morrow for an advanced copy of this book.

Though American Pop is fiction, I’m guessing you automatically think of the Coca-Cola family when you hear the premise of this book (especially since the author lives in Atlanta, GA). Wright mentioned in a Publisher’s Weekly interview that he was inspired by Coca-Cola “with a little bit of Dr. Pepper.” One of my complaints about the book was that there was no Author’s Note laying out what was true and what was fiction, which is my favorite parts of books based on real people and events, but Google can help you out with this a bit.

The story kicks off with a glitzy party scene at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and it’s immediately apparent that most Forster family members have skeletons in their closets…making American Pop most definitely a dysfunctional family novel. It was hit and miss for me, but overall more hit than miss. The writing is really fun and glittery, but sometimes veers into “what is he talking about?” territory. I loved that the book was juicy, pulling back the curtain on this prominent family, but he tried to pack a lot into it. There was lots of jumping around between time periods and characters, which made it hard to follow at times, and I wish he’d pared back the scope of the story a bit. But, I loved the spot-on social commentary on the South. It’s not a perfect book…it’s ambitious, but messy. But it’s overall an interesting twist on the dysfunctional family novel with flashes of brilliant writing and commentary.

Visit https://www.sarahsbookshelves.com for more reviews.

[chiara_librofilia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un secolo di storia ma soprattutto di cultura popolare americana poiché solo gli Stati Uniti possono essere immaginati e raccontati partendo da una semplice bevanda frizzante.
Snowden Wright, in questo suo terzo libro, racconta le vicende della famiglia Forster, il cui unico scopo non è la ricchezza, il successo o l'ambizione bensì creare una stirpe capace di incarnare perfettamente il Ventesimo secolo.
E tutti i membri della famiglia Forster, incarnano benissimo il mito e il sogno americano, racchiuso nella certezza che questa nazione garantisce vita, libertà e speranza ma in cambio chiede di lavorare sodo e i Forster, nel bene e nel male, lo fanno per tutta la loro intera esistenza.
Questo libro è un affresco sincero, onesto e veritiero che restituisce un buon profilo, un'ottima ricostruzione storica e mette in moto una vera e propria macchina della nostalgia per un'America ormai perduta.
In fondo, la vera protagonista di questo romanzo è proprio la Storia e i Forster, rappresentano solo il mito e l'emblema di una nazione ma soprattutto diventano una dinastia industriale che ha contribuito a rendere grandi gli Stati Uniti e perciò gli si può perdonare ogni cosa.

Recensione completa: https://www.librofilia.it/american-po...

[Tobey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Secrets. They can ruin people can't they?

I'll admit to struggling with this book for a bit. It's not that I didn't like it, but I found it hard to follow at times and I do read a lot of historical fiction so I am used to jumping around in time in a story but this one wasn't always easy.

I really wanted to finish this book in 2019 and it took me longer than it should have. I found I hit my stride in the last day or so, the chapters becoming more and more engaging and so the story flowed better for me. I was able to finish it and thus my 52 book goal for 2019!

[etherealfire · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Dawn]

9 pages in, I just could not do it. The style of writing felt dry to me. More like reading an article or a text book than a novel. I managed to already dislike every character I met. If I can't root for characters and the writing feels like a slog, best to part ways and move along to the next book on my vast TBR.

[Carolyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I will not be finishing this book. The story is disjointed, jumping from one era to another, one character to another, with not much to connect this for the reader. It would have been helpful if instead of the very strange phrases at the beginning of each chapter, the author had let the reader know what span of years each chapter dealt with.
Finally, e e cummings is not E.E. Cummings. Any author should know that.
Anyone interested in reading a family chronology spanning a century should read the three-volume saga written by Jane Smiley. It is wonderfully done.

[Crystal · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting premise but not a well thought out book. The character perspective and timeline jumps around at a disorienting speed that makes it hard to concentrate on or follow. While this is a character driven novel, I felt it lacked in depth. World issues and cultural shifts through each generation is skimmed on without any real focus. Particularly being a Southern tale, I would have liked to be enveloped in that time and culture.

[Maureen DeLuca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sheesh! I really seem to be in a reading slump !! I do enjoy historical fictions and this one sound really good - BUT, OMG - the introduction of so many flipping characters turns out to be a jumbled MESS...... the idea I loved, --- having said that ----- (you get the idea)

[Rebecca (booksandbreggs)]

DNF'd at 110 pages because I don't care. I will not be rating.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The South had just the right blend of strangeness and darkness to fascinate and frighten children, didn't it? It was similar enough to the real world to make a child think, I know this place, yet also different for them to go to sleep at night knowing it was only make-believe...a juke joint...a fried-peanut stand..a deer-processing center...the world of his own childhood, the strangeness, darkness, and altogether fucked-up-ness that made him the incredibly well-adjusted person he was today."

I devoured this in a weekend. Couldn't put it down. Snowden Wright: sho' can write. I found the--dare I say effervescent--narrative voice irresistible as this novel romped across over half of the twentieth century. My only criticism (I'm still not sure it's a fair one) is the relative glossing over of race relations, given this novel almost spans a century, and the arc of a Southern family who rockets to the top with the creation of a cola sensation. This is relatively light-hearted fare, but I found each character engaging, nonetheless. If Barry Hannah had written A Gentleman In Moscow this might come close.

[Alison Hardtmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just like an icy glass of coke on a hot summer's day, this was a refreshing break to the (slightly) more serious reading that I've been doing. This is a soap opera, a family saga where the story shifts quickly between the various family members, going back and forth in time, to tell the story of an American family's rise and fall.

When Houghton Forster developed a cola drink to serve in his father's pharmacy, he had no idea that it would be so popular. Houghton's a savvy businessman, though, and quickly takes advantage of the soda's popularity to make it a national product that becomes a standard beverage throughout the US and the world. Although firmly rooted at their home in Mississippi, the money that Panola Cola's success brings with it means that the next generation can move comfortably in high society, but not necessarily that they, or the following generation, have what it takes to keep the family business profitable.

Ranging from Panola County, Mississippi, to the battlefields of WWI France, to New York, to Hollywood and the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, American Pop also jumps back and forth through the timeline, so that a character's death is described before his first kiss, or a divorce before the marriage. It's a hard trick to pull off, juggling all the characters and their lives in a non-chronological way, but Wright pulls it off. The novel is pure entertainment that manages not to lose the story in all of that intricate structure.

[Fede La Lettrice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un arco di tempo lunghissimo (più di un secolo), innumerevoli personaggi, tanti ma non troppi e tratteggiati con attenzione e con toni emozionanti, il sogno americano, una bibita frizzante come frizzanti sono le vicende raccontate e la tecnica usata per raccontarle, una famiglia protagonista del proprio destino nel bene e nel male, un'America affascinante e matrigna. Tutto ciò contribuisce a rendere questo romanzo un'ottima lettura, appassionante e coinvolgente.
Non fatevelo scappare.

[David V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received as an ARC via my employer Barnes & Noble. Started 1-19-19. Finished 1-25-19. Excellent fictional story of a Southern family's rise and fall in the soda pop manufacturing business. Along the way, the reader learns American history of the era. One of the most fascinating list of characters I've ever read. The cover shows what appears to be a Coke bottle, but the story is not about the Coca-Cola Company, or maybe it is(?!). In any event, you won't soon forget these people. Some you want to cheer for, others you want to smack upside their heads!

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wright is a talented writer. When you read American Pop, you easily find yourself interested in what’s going on in nice prose with a somewhat sophisticated vocabulary.

The story takes place through a series of time jumps. We start at a New Years party and meet all of the main characters, but then the story just starts transitioning from time frame to time frame anywhere over the span of about 120 years where tangents become plot points. I’m not opposed to this kind of writing, but I feel like it was done because it’s the author’s trademark device that he does well, and not because it serves the narrative.

There’s no cadence or pattern to the time jumps. There is a gradual release of narrative that I think is supposed to be linear in some aspect that isn’t temporal, but I don’t see why it couldn’t have been temporal or perhaps used a less frenetic method of time jumping.

Some of the transitions were okay, and kind of natural. There are some stretches though, where we get something like “so-and-so walked past a shop where so-and-so was eating. That guy did this thing that is related to this other thing. This other thing was playing on the radio when yet another person was driving down the street 50 years earlier. That person drove past the next person I’m going to talk about.” Not all time jump transitions are that egregious, but enough were that I felt it was kind of insulting. Other people may like this though.

Otherwise, this book is a fine chapter in its genre, which is a multi-generational rags-to-riches-and-downfall-of-a-dynasty book. We follow a family over 5 generations, from industrial London to post-civil war Mississippi to the 1980s. We get to see people get rich and be rich and have problems like us, or rich people problems. I enjoyed that part of the story. I kind of wished we could have spent more time with the 4th generation people, but I think they had to be obscured for one of the main plot tragedies.

I’d read another Snowden Wright book. This one was alright.

[Pamela · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a novel about an American soda company that is like Coca Cola yet is not Coca Cola. Called Panola Cola and located in Mississippi, the story is centered around three generations of the Forster family, not one of whom is a sympathetic enough character for anyone to care about. It is told in short, confusing, and disjointed chapters that swing continually from past to present in no particular order or time frame. So one chapter it's Mississippi and 1890 and the next it's Paris in 1939 and a completely different character. Interspersed throughout are oddball facts that are distracting and, in some cases, have nothing to do with the story. I should have quit reading at the halfway point or when all the major characters had committed suicide or died in drunken accidents.

[Adriana (SaltyBadgerADii) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read about 25% of the book, and decided I couldn't continue. I was confused almost as soon as I started the book! It constantly jumps back and forth between characters and time periods! One minute you think you're reading about this person, but then you find out it's this other person's past? I don't know! Either way I couldn't continue! It sounded like it would be really good! But for now it's being marked as DNF.

I won this book as part of a Goodreads Giveaway.