Product Details
- Author: Ethan Canin
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- Binding: Hardcover
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- Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
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- EAN: 9780679456803
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- ISBN: 0679456805
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- Label: Random House
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- Manufacturer: Random House
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- Number of Items: 1
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- Number of Pages: 480
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- Product Group: Book
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- Publication Date: 2008-06-24
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- Publisher: Random House
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- Release Date: 2008-06-24
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- Studio: Random House
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- Title: America America: A Novel
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Avg Customer Rating: 
Product Description: 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, Pulitzer Prize-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 American dream 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
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Customer Reviews
A familiar, mythical story well told
Much of this book is about life as reflected by Canin. Maybe his thoughts maybe others or maybe a combination - hard to tell. What is apparent is the ideas are mostly rehashed. I won't say the philosophy, and there's ample, is sophomoric but it is obvious and repeated.
That said, the characters are well-depicted and dimensional. The descriptions are lush and detailed. The plot is simple but suspenseful as it is presented in an unusual way. That is the back story is the front story is the back story and Canin seamlessly cycles between them breaking rules without bruising them. Very cleverly done. The writing is smooth, paced and rhythmical. It's a writer's book.
Okay, did I enjoy it? Yes I did. I read straight through; I liked the view. It's a mythical story begging belief - a story you'd like to be part of - a story of accidental good fortune leading happily to success with enough destruction and rubble along the way to make it interesting.
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Jump-Cut Narrative Style = Huge Plot Holes
I started out really liking this book, but as the novel wore on the jump-cut narrative style - going back and forth in space and time abruptly and often lead to too many plot holes. Plot holes so big an "Ice Road Trucker" could drive a semi through them!
Some characters such as Holly Steen (college sweetheart) drop out of the story suddenly and with no explanation. How and why did Cory drop one Metarey sister for the other? I don't mind filling in the gaps with my imagination, but give me somthing to work with! Some characters such as Christian (one of the sisters) is so thinly developed I had no idea why at the end of the novel why she never ended up getting married.
I think this novel would have worked much better with a more conventional narrative style so that the breath and scope of the story could unfold and the characters could have developed the necessary depth to carry the weight and impact of the story. This novel reminds me a little bit of Russo's "Bridge of Sighs" which was much better. I hope the jump-cut style in both film and writing is a fad that will soon fade.
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A Disappointing Evocation of an Era
Ethan Canin's America America starts out as a promisng coming of age novel - a coming of age of both the protagonist and 20th Century America. In the end, however, Canin doesn't sustain the promise of the opening chapters - story lines drop without warning, and opportunities for plot and character depth are passed by. I read this shortly after finishing Empire Falls, a much more powerful novel.
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A Challenging Read
Man, this was a long book. I stuck with it because I wanted to see how it all turns out. I wasn't disappointed. But it was a challenge. The author jumps around from the past to the present, and at times was hard to decide what was happening. Things really picked up about 2/3 of the way through, and it was much easier to stick with it at that point. Prior to that, the author meanders through various scenes, setting the stage for the big event that changes the course of several peoples' lives. I can't say that I would recommend this book except to a very dedicated reader or a fan of American history. Which I am. Having said that, it was just ok.
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I loved this book
I loved this book. It reinforced my opinion that reading is one of the great pleasures of life. When I finished it, it went right on my book shelf--maybe to be borrowed sparingly, but forever a keeper.
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