Synopses & Reviews
From Ethan Canin, bestselling author of The Palace Thief, comes 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.
PRAISE FOR AMERICA AMERICA
A brilliant, serious book for serious readers.
-San Diego Union Tribune
A complicated, many-layered epic of class, politics, sex, death, and social history...Its reach is wide and its touch often masterly.
-John Updike in The New Yorker
A sprawling, captivating, timely work of art...Clearly the work of a writer at the top of his form...A novel that reminds us that fiction matters.
-Houston Chronicle
As rich, ambitious, intelligent, emotionally satisfying and important a work of fiction as we're likely to get this year.
-Richard Russo, PulitzerPrize-winning author of Empire Falls
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.
-Washington Post
An intoxicating big book-in both size and ambition.
Thrilling...Luminous.
-Cleveland Plain Dealer
A big, ambitious, old-fashioned, quintessentially American novel about politics, power, ambition, class, ethics and loyalty...Bravo to Canin for tackling the American Dream.
-Los Angeles Times
Beautifully written...Heartbreaking.
-USA Today
Intelligently observed, elegantly written...A perfect story for an election year, but one that will be read long after November.
-Christian Science Monitor
A magnificent novel with enormous sweep and power...The crowning glory of Ethan Canin's writing life.
-Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides
A very ambitious take on the great American novel-about class, wealth, politics, history, power, innocence and corruption. Beautiful...brilliant...complicated...At times triumphant, at times sad.
-Linda Wertheimer, National Public Radio
Ethan Canin could hardly wish for higher praise than this: His big, carefully crafted novel earns the right to its name.
--New York Observer
One of the best writers at work today.
-Lorrie Moore, author of Birds of America
At year's end, America America might not have won the National Book Award, but it should have.
-Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
A grand novel, with a wide scope and small anguishes...The writing is exquisite, the depiction of the fading days of a certain Americandream haunting.
-Miami Herald
A splendid novel.
-Publishers Weekly, Signature Review
A superb achievement.
-Library Journal, Starred Review
Powerful and haunting, a major work.
--Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
Striking...Sweeping, multileveled...America America has that pull, that something that could make it a classic.
-Buffalo News
From the Hardcover edition.
Synopsis
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 familys 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. 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. Ethan Canins stunning novel is about America as it was and is, a remarkable exploration of how vanity, greatness, and tragedy combine to change history and fate.
Synopsis
From the bestselling author of "The Palace Thief" comes 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.
Synopsis
At the twilight of his career, a faded newspaperman makes the find of a lifetime in a Chicago basement: diaries belonging to the infamous Judith Campbell Exner, one-time paramour to some of the most powerful men in America. When Frank Sinatra flew Judy to Hawaii for a weekend, she could hardly have imagined where it would lead her: straight to the White House and the waiting arms of Jack Kennedy. And then came the day that JFK and his brother Bobby sent her to Chicago, where she was to hand a black bag to the boss of bosses, Sam Giancana. As the reporter fashions Judys diary entries into a coherent story, he finds mob connections, rigged primaries, and assassination plotsand begins to see beyond the tabloid fare to a real woman, adrift and defenseless in a dangerous world where the fates of nations are at stake.
Who was Exner, after all? Just a gangsters moll? Or a bighearted woman who believed the sky-high promises of the New Frontierand paid the price?
About the Author
Ethan Canin is the author of six books, including the story collections Emperor of the Air and The Palace Thief and the novels For Kings and Planets and Carry Me Across the Water. He is on the faculty of the Iowa Writers Workshop and divides his time between Iowa and northern Michigan. He is also a physician.
Reading Group Guide
1. This novel makes many assertions about the American political landscape in the early 1970s. What are some of those assertions? In what ways have American politics changed since then? And how does Henry Bonwiller compare to todays politicians, in terms of his political demeanor and beliefs as well as in his sense of both personal and public morality?
2. Structurally, the novel is braided from several strands-the political story, the personal story, the story about economic class and social station, and the story of the town itself. Which of these stories, in your opinion, provides the novels bulwark? How does each contribute to the novels themes?
3. Corey has two father figures in the novel, his own father and Liam Metarey. Despite the differences in their social and economic stations, the men are similar in several ways. How? How do the two of them influence the man that Corey becomes?
4. Very early in the novel, an elderly man hobbles to the grave of Senator Henry Bonwiller, where he breaks down and weeps. Corey says he recognizes the man but never reveals a name. Why not? Who is this man? Why is it important to Corey that he is weeping? Why are we left to discover for ourselves the mans identity?
5. Trieste Millbury, the intern at The Speaker-Sentinel, clearly reminds Corey of himself. What role does she play in Coreys retelling of his past with the Metarey family? Why does he tell her his story?
6. At one point in the novel, Corey says: “It struck me again, the way it had just begun to do in those days, how diligently privilege had to work to remain oblivious to its cost.” Then he adds, “Im speaking of myself now, too, of course.” What are the costs, both to himself and others, of the privileges that have been bestowed upon Corey? Has he in fact worked to remain oblivious to these costs?
7. Newspapers play an important role in Coreys life-in their pages, he first learns about politics, and during the Bonwiller campaign he becomes obsessed by journalism and journalists; he interacts with reporters like Glenn Burrant and G. V. Trawbridge in significant ways; and, of course, in the end he becomes a newsman himself. In what ways has news reporting changed during the span of this novel-from the time of Eoghan Metareys rise, through Coreys childhood, up until the present day? In what ways has it remained consistent? What effects have these changes and these consistencies had on our democracy?
8. In a key scene near the conclusion of the book, Liam Metarey makes a gruesome discovery, then a fateful decision, while driving his tractor through an apple orchard in a blizzard. Why, after making this discovery, does he make this decision? The scene is a pivotal one, yet Corey is not in fact present when it takes place. Since nobody has explicitly told him what happened, Coreys depiction of the events seems to come largely, or perhaps entirely, from his imagination. What evidence does Corey have for what he deduces? Has Liam Metarey attempted to communicate to him what has occurred? If so, when? And what else might he have been trying to explain to Corey?
9. In many ways, the interactions of important characters drive the circumstances that result in Liam Metareys death. Do you think the principal catalyst for his actions and death was JoEllen Charney? Henry Bonwiller? Andrew Metarey? Or was it something deeper in Liams character?
10. Coreys description of the relationship between the town of Saline and the Metarey family is one of mutual trust and dependence. How does this relationship change over time, especially with respect to the influence of larger social forces like unionization and the rise of giant corporations? How does the opinion each party has of the other change over time?
11. Though Corey mentions his wife numerous times early in the text, the reader does not learn who he has married until much later. What is the purpose of delaying this information? And why, when Corey finally reveals his wifes identity, does he do it with so little fanfare? What is the significance of the information Corey shares with the reader and the information he omits, not only in regard to Clara but to other plot elements as well? Is it fair for Corey to withhold vital parts of his story? Does he leave clues about them nonetheless?
12. More than once in the novel, the narrator mentions a quotation from Francis Bacon: “If a man shall begin in certainties, he shall end in doubts.” How is this idea reflected in the lives of Liam Metarey, Eoghan Metarey, Granger Sifter, Henry Bonwiller, and Corey? Bacon was no doubt referring to the advent of the scientific method during the seventeenth century, but how might his words apply to our current culture?
13. Throughout the novel, Corey remembers and retells past events without adhering to chronological order. How does the lack of a linear chronology influence the readers experience? Is there a logic to the manner in which he recalls the scenes? Why does he tell the story like this?