The Other Americans
“Mozhan Marno as Nora and Ozzie Rodriguez as Efrain stand out among this first-rate group of narrators, each capturing the raw emotion of their character. A highly relevant and entertaining listen. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
AudioFile
A BookPage Top Pick of the Month in Literary Fiction
An Entertainment Weekly Pick of Best Upcoming Books
A Boston Globe Pick of 2019's Most Anticipated Books
A Huffington Post Pick of Most Anticipated Books
A BuzzFeed Books Pick of Most Anticipated Books of 2019
Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
Longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction
A Time Magazine Best Book of 2019 in Fiction
Among longlisted titles for Aspen Words Literary Prize, 2020
Among shortlisted titles for National Book Awards, 2019
Winner of Simpson Family Literary Prize, 2019
Among longlisted titles for Aspen Words Literary Prize, 2020
Among shortlisted titles for National Book Awards, 2019
Winner of Simpson Family Literary Prize, 2019
Among longlisted titles for Aspen Words Literary Prize, 2020
Among shortlisted titles for National Book Awards, 2019
Winner of Simpson Family Literary Prize, 2019
Finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Fiction
Winner of the Arab American Book Award in Fiction
Named a Best Book of the Year by Time, the Washington Post, BookPage, NPR, the Guardian, Variety, New York Public Library, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Dallas Morning News, and Kirkus Reviews.
From the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Moor’s Account, here is a timely and powerful novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant—at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.
Late one spring night, Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant living in California, is walking across a darkened intersection when he is killed by a speeding car. The repercussions of his death bring together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui’s daughter Nora, a jazz composer who returns to the small town in the Mojave she thought she'd left for good; his widow, Maryam, who still pines after her life in the old country; Efraín, an undocumented witness whose fear of deportation prevents him from coming forward; Jeremy, an old friend of Nora's and an Iraq War veteran; Coleman, a detective who is slowly discovering her son's secrets; Anderson, a neighbor trying to reconnect with his family; and the murdered man himself.
As the characters—deeply divided by race, religion, and class—tell their stories, connections among them emerge, even as Driss’s family confronts its secrets, a town faces its hypocrisies, and love, messy and unpredictable, is born.
Praise