My New American Life

by Francine Prose

Francine Prose captures contemporary America at its most hilarious and dreadful in My New American Life, a darkly humorous novel of mismatched aspirations, Albanian gangsters, and the ever-elusive American dream. Following her New York Times bestselling novels BlueAngel and A Changed Man, Prose delivers the darkly humorous story of Lula, a twenty-something Albanian immigrant trying to find stability and comfort in New York City in the charged aftermath of 9/11. Set at the frontlines of a cultural war between idealism and cynicism, inalienable rights and implacable Homeland Security measures, My New American Life is a moving and sardonic journey alongside a cast of characters exploring what it means to be American.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, New York, Humor, Adult Fiction, Book Club

306 pages, Hardcover

First published April 26, 2011

About the author

Francine Prose is the author of twenty works of fiction. Her novel A Changed Man won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Blue Angel was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent works of nonfiction include the highly acclaimed Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer. The recipient of numerous grants and honors, including a Guggenheim and a Fulbright, a Director's Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, Prose is a former president of PEN American Center, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her most recent book is Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Kristin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really don't like giving books bad reviews, mostly because I usually try to chose ones that I think I'll like and won't be a waste of time, and I especially hate having to give bad reviews to a book I win on Goodreads, but despite sounding good in the synopsis there really wasn’t anything I liked about this book.

In a nutshell, this is the story of Lula, a twenty-six-year-old immigrant from Albania working as a caregiver in New Jersey for a Wall Street executive whose wife developed a mental illness and deserted the family within the last year or so. Since Zeke, the son that Lula is watching, is a senior in high school, she’s basically there to make sure he eats his vegetables, even though she mostly just feeds him frozen food, and doesn’t burn down the house since his father, Mister Stanley, as Lula calls him, works very long hours in Manhattan. Lula, therefore, has a lot of free time.

Very early on we find out that Lula has been visited by three young Albanian guys who call her little sister (all Albanians are related, they say) and ask her to hide a gun for them. The story follows Lula as she tries to get a green card; find Dunia, her missing friend from Albania with whom she came to America; find a new job after Zeke graduates and goes to college; and deal with the three Albanian guys who continue to visit Lula out of the blue, among other things.

I understand that there are differences between Americans and people from other countries and that anyone who has lived through a war or poverty and their aftermaths will have a different view of the world and what they need to do to survive. While I’ve read reviews that describe this book as being caustically funny, charming and exuberantly optimistic, I just didn’t see it. The main character makes mojitos (yes, watered down, but still, alcoholic) for a seventeen-year-old, tells us that she sounds British because her teacher was British but that she was also tutored by an Australian and that she paid for those lessons with blow jobs, lies to her boss and the lawyer who fights for her to get her green card as well as just about anyone else she talks to.

She immediately, and I mean before he even gets to the door, becomes infatuated with one of the Albanians, Alvo, and fantasizes about being with him all through the book, even after she finds out what type of person he really is, which, truthfully, she has to have known all along. Also, longish hair, a mustache and a gold tooth. What’s not to like?!

The stuff that happens in this book just seems so unrealistic and, often, random. You let three shady men you’ve never met before into your boss’ house and agree to hide a gun for them just because they’re the same nationality? I’m sure that wouldn’t hurt your chance to become and American citizen at all! And how did they even find her? Her “love” for Alvo was also ridiculous. People complain about characters falling in love in YA novels and chick-lit too quickly but this makes the lead-up to all of those romances look like a marathon. And I’m not even going to go into what was going on with Dunia or what happens with Ginger, Stanley’s wife. I suppose the ending was meant to be the start of what could potentially be a happily ever after, and was, again, unrealistic, but to be honest I don’t think she deserved it. I know this is a work of fiction, but in real life there are so many good and honest people who come to America and work hard to become citizens and establish a life for themselves that her apparent lack of a moral compass was a complete turn-off.

By the last forty pages I was just skimming the paragraphs because I just didn’t want to have to read every word anymore. If any character in this book had been even remotely likeable and not completely depressing, I might’ve had a different view of the book but, unfortunately that was not the case.

[Cynnamon · Rating 2 out of 5]

A satirical novel about a young, female Albanian immigrant who tries with all means to gain a foothold in the US.The book comments on the American middle-class lifestyle from the perspective of an Southeastern European who doesn't really understand the mentality but tries to adapt.

Considerably less funny and less interesting than I expected.
2.5 stars, downgraded.

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Ein satirischer Roman entweder über die US-amerikanischen Vorstadt-Mittelklasse-Bürger, die versuchen gute Menschen zu sein, aber es nicht so richtig schaffen, oder über den Versuch einer osteuropäischen Immigrantin mit allen Mitteln eine Green Card zu ergattern, oder beides (ich konnte das nicht so richtig feststellen).

Lula, eine junge Albanerin kommt mit Touristenvisum in die USA, arbeitet illegal, zuerst in einer Bar, dann in einem Haushalt, lernt unter mehr als dubiosen und wenig glaubhaften Bedingungen ein paar albanische Kleinkriminelle kennen, verliebt sich und befindet sich am Ende mehr oder weniger wieder in ihrer Ausgangssituation,

Ich hatte mir eine deutlich lustigere Lektüre erwartet. Auch die Geschichte an sich war letztlich nur mäßig interessant.

Daher 2,5 Sterne, abgerundet auf 2.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prose does a great job of presenting Americans from an immigrants' point of view. Those of us who have roots here for three or four generations tend to think life and customs here are life and customs period.
The Albanian narrator, Lula sees America and Americans with a survivor's eye, tremendous wit and irony. She tells stories, lies, and tells truths as well. She has fled Albania to make a new American life.
On the way, she stops off in New Jersey, and provides aid to a family which is shell shocked from the matriarch's disappearance and descent into insanity. Her own strength is derived from surviving traumas in Communist Albania and the losses in her family. She does not provide chicken soup and warm hugs. This is today's story. She nukes frozen pizza for the bereft 17 year old and sits with his abandoned father as he drinks water. She provides the glue for an American family which is unhinged by its own tragedy.
Lula is no angel. She is smart, resourceful, sexy and and aching. Part of her American life is just like the readers. Part of it is just Lulu's.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

My New American Life is whip-smart funny. Satire is not always easy to pull off on the written page , and Prose does it amazingly well. Her writing, especially of Lula's thoughts, had me cracking up, like this one:
"Lula knew that some Americans cheered every time INS agents raided factories and shoved dark little chicken-packagers into the backs of trucks. She'd seen the guys on Fox News calling for every immigrant except German supermodels and Japanese baseball players to be deported, no questions asked."
Lula wants desperately to grab a hold of the American dream, but her job as a nanny to an 17-year-old young man leaves her bored and stuck in the suburbs with no friends and nothing to do. Prose makes you feel her stifling suffocation. When the wanna-be Sopranos Albanians show up and ask her to "hold on to" a gun for them, Lula does as she's asked, even though she knows this could lead to trouble for her and her employer and her deportation. Yet, strangely, she cannot say no to them; and besides, it's a little excitement.

I usually identify with at least one of the characters in a novel that I read, but I could not identify with anyone in this book, yet that did not stop me from enjoying it. I live in New York City, a city that runs because of its immigrant population, and this book gave me a new perspective on the people who leave their families behind to start a new life elsewhere.

Lula misses her homeland; she cries
"for her once-beautiful homeland now in the hands of toxic dumpers and sex traffickers and money launderers. She cried for missing her country, for not missing it, for having nothing to miss. She cried for the loneliness and uncertainty of her life among strangers who could still change her mind and make her go home."
All of the characters are interesting: sad sacks Mister Stanley and his friend Don (both divorced and lost), young Zeke (I just wanted to hug him and tell him it will be all right), the Albanians (a riot!) and Lula's friend Dunia, who hits the immigrant lottery by finding a rich man to marry.

There are so many fantastic scenes- at the restaurant where Lula gets a celebratory citizenship dinner with Zeke, his dad, Don and his caustic daughter, Lula's date with Alvo, the college trip- all are sharp and memorable.

Prose successfully combines the comic and the tragic, and throws in some politics, like Don's work with detainees at Guantanemo. Her portrait of American life soon after 9/11 (through Lula's eyes) is vivid and thought-provoking.

[Lena · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won a GoodReads contest and received the uncorrected proof in the mail about a week later. I was still reading a Salman Rushdie book, but picked this up immediately after finishing. It is jarring, going from Rushdie's poetic prose to Prose's clunky language. I wonder if I would have enjoyed this more if I hadn't read something so excellent just prior to this novel. Well, there's nothing we can do about that now.

I am an Albanian-American, though unlike Lula, I was born here. My parents aren't from Tirana, either; they were just mountain folk. Just the same, I felt that I had a stake in this book before I began reading it. I wanted to finally read about the Albanian experience in the United States instead of the second-hand immigrant or second generation experience of other cultures clashing in the US (I say second-hand because those cultures are not my culture and the experiences and writing do differ as a result). Unfortunately, Prose simply hasn't the literary chops to make this one work.

It has its bright spots and I can tell that Prose did her homework. However, there is a fundamental something missing from this depiction, some true Balkan spark. Ours is a culture full of contradictions and half-truths and curtains, which is something she understands on a superficial level. She conveys this by making Lula a compulsive liar and her three Albanian "brothers" criminals who speak in thinly veiled lies. However, it just doesn't ring true. They pantomime, speaking what would sound like the right words to a casual observer but it is almost always false to me.

I guess this is the kind of book that would be OK for a reader of pop fiction, but as somewhat of a literature snob (I say somewhat), I just couldn't enjoy it. And that disappoints me more than you know. I'll keep waiting for the true Albanian story in the meantime.

[Talia Carner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Out of reverence for a successful author, I am reluctant to share how disappointed I feel as I put down a novel and ask, "Is this it? Is that all?" I would not have written this review if I didn't take a page from the author herself, Francine Prose, whose sharp critical pen had once smashed Maya Angelou's metaphors to pieces in a 1999 article in Harper's Magazine.

Lula, an Albanian refugee, is living with Mister Stanley and his high-school senior son whose wife and mother respectively had left them abruptly last Christmas. Lula's role is just to keep the lonely, friendless Zeke company after school until his father comes home and the two of them can engage in their painfully awkward relationship, dancing around the void left by the woman of the house. With a lot of time on her hands, Lula, who conveniently speaks perfect English with a vocabulary that only the top 1% of American master, is content to mark time while Mister Stanley's friend, Don, arranges for her work visa. In time, hopefully, there would be the Green Card that would allow her to make USA her home. She is comfortable in the house and other than some vague worry about her friend who might have disappeared into a trafficking ring but shows up as living the rich life only twenty miles away, there is no worry. Neither does Lula, at twenty-seven, possess a vision of a future and shows no ambition for a career or love.

There is little that is not American about Lula other than she doesn't know how to drive, a fact made poignant because her parents were killed in Albania as a result of her father's reckless driving--and not in an act of war as her listeners prefer to hear when she regales the small circle with her stories, told both orally and in writing. She produces stories as distraction, to prove to Mister Stanley and Don that she is using her ample free time wisely.

If staying in America is her motivation, and if Lula is as intelligent and educated as Prose makes her to be, it is doubly surprising that when some strange Albanian thugs appear at her door, she not only immediately invites them in, but agrees to keep their gun. There is much at stake for her, yet the reader sees no hesitation on her part nor any motivation to risk it all, including the trust of Mister Stanley and Zeke. Her infatuation with one of the thugs comes as an afterthought, as is her sense of camaraderie with these fellow ex-pats, and none is particularly strong to suggest that it can make up for what she stands to lose.

Who more than Francine Prose, who also teaches creative writing, knows Chekhov's suggestion if you show a gun in the first act, it better be fired later. Yet, like the rest of this undramatic story, when the gun reappears, it has no real affect on the events. It doesn't drive the action of that scene--just as there is no dramatic action anywhere in the novel. (e.g., Zeke driver's permit and his father allow him to drive to the nearest supermarket every afternoon with Lula in the passenger seat. The reader is often in the car during these boring excursions. Yet one day when they find the supermarket closed for renovations and Lula agrees to continue to a more distant supermarket, there are no consequences. The author simply dropped the ball on one more event that could have become interesting. Otherwise, why bother telling us about the closed supermarket?)

In another tool that Prose would have frowned upon had it appeared in her students' work or in a book she reviewed, Prose uses coincidence to divert the story into another path. The meeting of Don's former girlfriend when Lula visits Zeke's college gives Lula a new career path as an Albanian-English court interpreter, but that too, is not milked for all its worth because she only visits the court to learn that the subject of her infatuation is a criminal, a fact that both the reader and she had known from the moment he showed up at Mister Stanley's door. She doesn't even become his court interpreter, which might have revived this otherwise lethargic story.

Lula keeps throwing "Little known facts about Albania," and adds that all facts about Albania are little known. That humor is one of the brighter sayings of Lula as Prose introduces the reader to some of the realities of life in Albania, not much different from any other former communist regime.

As the novel droned on, holding my attention only because of Prose's prose and reputation, I was certain that there would be a payoff at the end with some huge revelation or some twist that would make this long, boring story worth the time. That did not happen, as the ending, like the rest of the book is not believable and left me cold.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book and the Albanian main character who is trying to figure out American life. Lula is the live-in caretaker for a high school student, a precarious job for her, since everyone she meets assumes that she is sleeping with his father, the man she calls Mister Stanley. The book describes how Lula tries to figure out how to succeed in America. Due to the exigencies of life in Albania, Lula is adept at lying. She finds that it solves many problems and seems to please Mister Stanley and his friend Don, an immigration lawyer. She is grateful for the comfortable home and easy job she has, but is lonely, especially after her best friend, another Albanian, becomes incommunicado. Almost every encounter that Lula has with Stanley and Don is challenging, fraught with the danger that she could lose their good will and then miss her chance to become a permanent resident of the country. But she handles most of these encounters with acumen and self-possession. Lula is a combination of naive newcomer and shrewdly insightful employee who succeeds in her limited role until three Albanian men force their way into her life and she starts yearning for greater freedom. It's not a deep story, but it's not shallow either. Lula is escaping from a miserable society, and by the end of the book, the reader will be rooting for Lula's success and happiness, though we know it will not come easily.

[alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have loved and hated Francine Prose's books and was pleased that she was back in form for me. Lula, an illegal Albanian immigrant, is a nanny of sorts to a melancholy teen and his more melancholy father, Mr. Stanley. She is sassy, sad, and quite charming in her diffidence. I could see her shrug her shoulders in explaining what life was like first under the Communists in Albania, then the "good guys". Her life in America is filled with excitement for the potential of her new life, boredom with the life she found, and the titillation of three Albanian men who show up on her doorstep knowing a little too much about her. There is nothing deep here but I had a good time.

[Nicola · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading other peoples reviews, I am not sure whether I have "missed" something with this book?
I found it quite hard to get into, mainly because so many things- like the misspelling of Albanian words- niggled me.

I didn't find the characters lovable or even very realistic- Now, I know Albanians, my husband is Albanian, I regularly spend time in Albania, I am used to the culture, traditions and superstitions- but this book, for me at any rate, got it all so very wrong. For want of a better description, it was like reading the what people, who have never met any Albanians, believe Albanians to be like- the culture written about was so far off the mark that it was actually a little bit offensive, Albanian spellings and terminology was often incorrect and many facts were just plain wrong.

The main character, Lula, I think was meant to come across as a sort of tough and sassy girl who had overcome personal struggles, what with coming form "one of the most oppressive communist states" (which is constantly repeated), where people live in squalor (ditto) and girls get into uni by "blowing their tutors"... infact, where women get anything they want by paying in sexual favours (offensive??!) ....... she just came across to me as a moron, who tells ridiculous lies and moons about over Alvo/Arkon... another moron, who is so stereotypically "Pantomime Albo"- all big black car, gold teeth and shqiponje's it is unbelieveable!

I was really disappointed with this book, I had been wanting to read it for a while- I really wanted to like it mainly for the Albanian angle, but I fear that the bits that irritated me far outweighed the genuinely funny parts. Albanians have the strangest proverbs, richest history and culture and at times are just plain crazy (in a good way!), this book could have been so much better.

[Susan Kavanagh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Francine Prose dazzles the reader with her finely honed satiric skills in My New American Life, in which she tells the story of Lulu, an Albanian immigrant who arrives in America during the second Bush-Cheny term. While in New York on a tourist visa, Lulu works illegally at a mojita bar where the wait staff takes bets on who will be the first to be deported. With her visa about to expire, Lulu lands a sinecure when she is hired as a companion for a high school senior whose father does not want him to be home alone in a New Jersey suburb. Both the father, a former academic now working on Wall Street, and son are depressed because the wife and mother has developed mental illness and runaway from the family. Lulu speaks English fluently and by playing a little loose with her family history convinces the father that she is refugee of the Balkan wars. He has his friend, a prominent immigration attorney, procure her a work visa. So life is going smoothly until three Albanian tough guys come to visit Lulu one day. This is a very funny book. After growing up under the most repressive Communist regime in the world, Lulu’s view of American culture—from organic grocery stores to college admissions—is hilarious. Prose’s delicious mix of satire, well developed characters, and galloping narrative kept me turning the pages very late at night. Although the book addresses serious issues regarding immigration and government restrictions, it is never didactic. [I won this book as part of the First Reads Program.]

[treva · Rating 1 out of 5]

Since I've heard Francine Prose's name bandied about quite a bit, I was excited to see this as a First Reads give away and really curious to check out her work. Now I'm wondering what the big deal is.

I could almost look past the fact that the writing was predictable to the extent that when Lula asks Dunia, "Tell me about Steve," I thought in my head, "What's to tell?", turned the page, and SURE ENOUGH right at the top of page 182: "Dunia said, 'What's to tell?'" Seriously? If your very name is Prose, you need to be above this banal cliche shit. If you're not going to take it seriously, don't expect me to. Still, I could almost just let myself be mildly entertained, and I could almost, just almost, shrug my shoulders at the fairy tale ending, even though it made me feel like I had just wasted my time.

But I have this crazy flaw where I just can't help being sickened by rampant homophobia, particularly when there was a theme, albeit mostly unexplored and kind of just there for looks, of civil rights and inhumane treatment running through the book. You can sit there and tell me the gay-bashing is satirical and ironic, but a) I think that's a cop out, and b) too many characters from varying backgrounds subscribed to it. I'm sorry, but I can not get on board with homophobia.

Actually, I take that back. I'm not sorry at all.

[Oriana · Rating 2 out of 5]

before: Huh, Francine Prose. She's in that middle level where I'm not like against reading her, but I hadn't really thought I'd try to hard to prioritize her. Except I got her book for free! This whole First Reads thingy is really so smart.

after: Hmm. Well, not so great, not so bad. Kind of amateurish. She's good at evoking an atmosphere, I guess, because I found the whole book (especially the last, say, third) just depressing as hell. She's done a great job of creating a half-dozen of the loneliest people I've ever read. But I didn't really like any of them, which I'm realizing more and more is a requirement for me to enjoy a book. Here's these people, these bleak lonely stasis people, all in arm's reach of each other, and not doing anything to help each other out of their misery. That's just so consistently upsetting to me.

Plus she's a pretty bad teller-not-shower. SOO much internal dialogue and second-guessings and overly illuminated thought processes. I hate authors who think their readers are too stupid to figure anything out on their own.

Eh, IDK. It wasn't so bad, the plot is pretty interesting and all, but I can't say I liked it all that much. I'm not sorry I read it, but I'm really glad it was free.

[Ron Ratchford · Rating 4 out of 5]

My new American Life is the world of a young woman named Lulu. She is discovering an America that Columbus only dreamed of. A bit of humor and a lot of irony oozes from every pore of this narrator and new found gem of acharacter. She is a caretaker of a young boy and perhaps his biggest fan but his life is changing and she is showing him a few possible ways of getting around the rules of a well intended but clueless father.
This is also about the distance from New York and the Balkans and about the distance from New York to New Jersey. The distances are about equal. You don't believe me just ask Lulu.

[Adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an immigrant to the USA myself, I thought this book was great. It delved into some of the complex feelings that come with that experience, like leaving your country and what that entails (loss of your identity, your friends and family, your previous understanding of the way the world works, your culture, the way you speak, and so on) and also what it means to move to the USA specifically - which, at times, is not the most welcoming country to foreigners.

I thought that Francine Prose also did a pretty good job sharing some ideas that I myself have had, or my other foreign friends have expressed, about how certain Americans view us and the places we come from, and how the USA has been portrayed to us in those countries growing up. All of these things are valuable parts of a much larger discussion around immigrant identity and belonging in this country.

With that being said, I can see how people might be offended by the book's overall critiques of American privilege and imperialism. Writing about the perceptions of someone who moved to the USA from a place that Americans don't care about or simply think about in stereotypes is always going to ruffle feathers. Especially when that person is not a grovelling, eternally grateful Americanophile and has a lot of sassy opinions about the shortcomings of the USA. Sure, that might be unpleasant. But I think it's also really important, especially for Americans who might be espousing xenophobic sentiment without being aware of it. (If you're curious, there's quite a bit of holier-than-thou insularity in the negative reviews of this book, which just proves its own necessity.)

FYI: 14% of the USA is made up of immigrants, and a further 12% are native-born but have at least one immigrant parent. You're looking at a quarter of the entire USA. Books about the immigrant experience are also about the American experience. They are also American books.

[Sarah]

The audiobook roped me in, and the narrator was truly a voice actress. Picture "Barry" meets "The Goldfinch". Or at least, that's what I pictured. She captured dark Slavic humor in suburban New Jersey in a story I never expected. I never even had an urge to fast-forward or change it (siblings, I'm looking at you) and listened to almost 1/2 in one day. I don't know that I would have ever picked it up, or if I would have felt the same if I read it. Definitely not realistic or meant to be taken too seriously, read or listen with the same mindset you might have while watching "Barry" or a Netflix show with frequent winks at the camera.

[Patricia Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very different story from what I usually read but very entertaining and easy to read. The story of an immigrant girl and her "new life" in America. Her ideas and opinions of things that happen in this country that are so different and unusual for people from other more oppressed countries. DEfinitely recommend.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Francine Prose's novel, My New American Life, has one of the worst covers I have ever seen on a book by a serious American writer. It is a picture of a rosy-cheeked girl in a marching band uniform playing a drum. She has a big smile on her face and wears a hat with a leather brim and an eagle on the crown.

Nonetheless I read My New American Life in part because I admired Prose's Reading Like A Writer so much. I was pretty sure that her benighted publisher was hyperventilating when he slapped that cover on her book. Prose is just too discriminating and intelligent to be the culprit.

This proved to be more or less the case, although My American Life isn't much of a novel. Rather, it is an airy, hopeful, pretty funny, wandering tale about a young Albanian girl trying to make her way toward a Green Card (Permanent Resident Status) by serving as a bored nanny in the New Jersey suburbs of New York.

Lula, our heroine's name, is a kind, thoughtful, exceptionally smart person with nothing going for her except the motherwit she brought along from Albania. Albania, for those who don't know, was the most secretive, closed-off country in the world during the Cold War. Partly as a consequence, and partly as a consequence of being a country in the Balkans, Albanians are cynical, have lived worse than however they are living now, resilient, and generally convinced that within the next few seconds they'll figure out how to escape their latest jam.

That's Lula. This is a story about her ducking the sex-slave trade, being beached in the Garden State, and falling in semi-love with a small time Albanian hood named Alvo. (He makes his great escape by being deported.)

Lots of things happen, with increasing frequency as the book rolls towards its end. That makes for numerous comic scenes that don't credibly add up, especially when the various calamities turn into serendipities and most of the horrendous possibilities are blunted by Lula's dumb luck, grandmother's sayings, and the ongoing circus of America at large within itself, meaning there is an Italian mafia (Tony Soprano in Bay Ridge), a Russian mafia (in Brighton Beach), and an Albanian mafia (wherever it can squeeze in.)

Prose excels in long stretches of lively dialogue and a general picture of Americans as sadder, slower, and more culturally impoverished than Albanians. She's good at father/son alienation, broken-down wives, and the materialistic mysteries of what passes for Christmas. Lula has to navigate all this; she doesn't always succeed; but she's spunky and not mean. (I was reminded of a teenage friend of my son addressing her father as, "You wretched little man," to his face; now that's mean; Lula would never do such a thing.)

I have no idea why Prose decided to pack this book with Albanians other than their scheming remoteness and bizarre past, but why not? For two decades I was a diplomat. We never dealt with, worried about, or even discussed Albania. It was sealed-up. It might as well have been a moth hole in a woolen map--not there, absent. Well, that was a while ago, and now the Albanians are here with us, banging their drums.

For more of my comments on contemporary fiction, see Tuppence Reviews (Kindle).

[Bronté · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, it took me a few days to finish the book since it was a pretty straightforward read. The preview was intriguing; an immigrant named Lula encounters three Albanian men who know her heritage and location, and ask her to hold onto a gun. She's staying with a single father and his teenage son Zeke, babysitting him while working for her citizenship. It sounds like an insane story just waiting to be exciting and mind-blowing... But I was disappointed when I turned the last page.

Lula is completely consumed with Alvo, one of the three Albanian men who come to the Stanley residence. Yet all I know about this stud's appearance is his mane of red hair and his gold tooth. I understand the human mind is very repetitive, shown as Lula occasionally thinking about successful women and fancy underwear. But it felt like I could skip chapters and still understand what was happening; the narration was too tedious. It also irked me that Lula yearned for citizenship and the high class lifestyle when she threw common sense out the window. She allowed three strangers into the house of the people allowing her to stay there. She fixed "watered down" Mojitos for Zeke when Mr. Stanley hired her to prevent mishaps like that. She lied through her teeth every chance she got, taking Albanian stories and attaching her family to them. It seemed almost wrong to cheer for a character who disregarded the rules.

And everything just sort of... happened. For a good portion of the book Lula feared for her best friend Dunia's life when she suddenly disappears without a trace. Then Dunia reappears, safe and sound - and rich! - which was really anti-climactic. There were surprises but it was buried under the constant repetition of the events. Not to mention I was told what to feel and toward who the entire time. Pity Mr. Stanley, pity Zeke, admire and cringe at Don, but lie to them all frequently.

But there were a few parts where the descriptions were just enough, such as, "Don's round bald head and belly reminded Lula of a bowling pin for giants." Where the repetition was non-existent I did get a feel for the characters through their actions and words. When Mr. Stanley spoke of how all the nasty memories of his wife crowded out the fond ones, it gave more impact than Lula again reiterating him as pitiful. And at the very end when Lula drives away in her new car, finally living the American Dream the themes of patience, happiness, and being truthful really shine though. There are truths to this book that people really are expendable in "Corporate America" and the legal system isn't always fair; these were the few highlights of this book. Overall, this book was much too redundant and randomized, but the parts that did work ended up tacking on the extra star for me.

[Sara Weather · Rating 1 out of 5]

I want to thank goodreads and Francine Prose for letting me win this book.

This book had so much potential. Or maybe i had hopes of what it would be.A foreigner coming to america and doing embrassingly, funny weird things because of culture shock. But i did not find that.I found a story about a girl who is a compulsve liar who is supposed to be funny.It tried so hard to shock and make you laugh. Trust me to write i had mybe one or two laught at the beginning when my laughs are out of newness. The relationship she had with Alvo i did not care. The relationships and characeters of this story i did not care at all. Never got into the story, i just kept reading to get to a change that would make the whole experience of reading this worth it,which never came. I would have given it two stars because it was readable in a sense but i realized i had to put my mind in certain mind frame to finish reading this. And i had a headache for the last chapters that misteriously went away when i finished it.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somehow I’ve never read anything by prolific author Francine Prose. She’s written 18 novels and I’ve been told her book Reading like a Writer offers fantastic advice. My New American Life crisply satirizes immigration and the American dream. Lula, an Albanian immigrant, works as a pseudo-nanny watching a high-school age boy while his father works on Wall Street. Using crisp dialogue, vivid descriptions and biting humor, Prose chronicles Lulu’s struggles with capitalizing on the American dream while simultaneously attempting to keep some Albanian thugs from ruining everything. Lula is a scrappy, astute character. While her job is cushy, she’s smart and realizes it will end soon and she’s calculating a way to gain citizenship and remain in the United States. Lulu writes stories that her boss and her attorney both find charming—old world tales of Soviet Bloc Albania and its backward ways. Lulu’s a magnificent liar and whether that gets her into trouble or not remains a major theme throughout My New American Life.

[Melanie Storie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book! Lula, an Albanian immigrant, lies a lot and mostly doesn't even know why she's doing it. Maybe out of habit, to keep her guard up, a learned behavior from living under Communism. Whatever the reason, when she does lie, it is funny and sad all at the same time. And despite her lies and her strange situation (she is the nanny for a high school senior and writes down Albanian folktales as if they really happened to her family - oh, and she's holding a gun for some shady Albanian characters...), I found myself rooting for her. On a deeper level, this is a book about seeing "American Life" through the eyes of someone from another culture - both the good and the not so good of who we are. We see Lula see herself become more "American" and maybe the Americans around her become a little "Albanian." And, as this country is one big melting pot, this is just fine with me.

[Cher · Rating 4 out of 5]

“My New American Life: A Novel” is loaded with humorous social commentary from Lula, a 26 yr-old Albanian woman visiting New York on a quickly expiring tourist visa. The story is set in 2005; the heart of the Bush/Cheney reign, and non-religious, half-Muslim, half-Christian Lula shapes her life story to achieve her goal of remaining in America.
Lula’s relationships with her employer, a depressed and separated New Jersey financier, his emo teenage son and their family friend, who is conveniently a top immigration lawyer, contrast with her connections to her longtime friend and countrywoman and the new Albanian “brothers” that muscle their way into her life. Lula’s tales of Albanian life during and after Communist rule coupled with her wry take on American life and relationships make for a truly enjoyable story.

[Rozemarijn · Rating 2 out of 5]

My New American Life concerns a different immigrant narrative. Centering the life of Lula, an Albanian 26-year old who migrated a few years ago to the States. She hasn't a clear perspective what she wants, or wants to become. She works as a nanny for a 16 year old boy. It bugged me how how careless she was with the opportunities, and lack thereof.

The social critique was left out, and the only thing the novel showed was how traditions and social networks from the country of origin (can) still have an influence in the New American Life. This is something politics forget, how people look "after eachother", in the worst way possible - preventing integration and an inclusive society.

[Stacielynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was not enamored of the story or the prose. The main character was neither lovable nor sympathetic, despite her horrific past. The other characters were flat and undefined, little more than a cliche. I had high hopes about this book and was ready for insights into the strife in Eastern Europe. That was not delivered. I felt I knew no more about any of characters and their lives -- aside from the occurrence of certain events -- at the end of the book than I did at the beginning. The aforementioned events were never explored by the characters and there was no insight into how those events shaped their thoughts, feeling, and lives. Wouldn't suggest it to anyone and am sad that I can't sell my kindle copy on the used book market.

[Carolyn Crocker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lula, an Albanian over-staying her visitor's visa, looks at W's/Cheney's America with a cynical, wondering eye and fits her story to maximize her advantage. She becomes a caregiver to a high school senior, depends on her employer, connects to questionable fellow Albanians, and weighs self-preservation and a desire to live the American dream. Very funny-- and thought-provoking.

"No doubt about it, there was more freedom here. You just had to watch your back, and not shoot off your mouth or do anything stupid that would get you locked up or kicked out." p. 54

[Greg Olear · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb...Prose sets up a compare/contrast between the US and Albania (there's more in common than you'd think, especially in the Bush years, when the story takes place), but the story is so compelling, the characters so interesting, and the writing so fluid, that you don't notice. Funny, insightful, heartbreaking, sexy, and, ultimately, hopeful.

[Marissa Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prose could have easily made this book meatier and darker. But Lula, the plucky protagonist, has dealt with so much already--growing up in a totalitarian state, losing her parents to a car crash, lying in order to stay in the United States--that her unperturbed, comic narration works just fine in this novel of stalking, bullying, mental illness, and despair.

[Hollis Fishelson-holstine · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was recommended to me by the woman who owns the Faulkner bookstore in New Orleans. THe first one she recommended was amazing, so I was looking forward to the others. Unfortuantely, this one just wasn't for me. Perhaps it would be funny to others, but it just seemed pathetic to me and I couldn't get interested enough to stay with it. I'm sorry I actually bought it!

[Joan Gelfand · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book rocks! Prose's prose is pitch perfect. I cannot imagine how she nailed the Albanian sense of humor, the dark and sardonic relationships and personal histories but she did.

Highly recommend for a good laugh, a look at the real side of Eastern European life and immigration /absorption/assimilation issues and for just plain great writing.

[Christy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't often enjoy books about immigration. But being this one was fiction and actually interesting, I really did enjoy it. The writing often appears scattered, but the story is good and it's a quick and easy read.