Source: Audible
Audiobook, 10+ hrs.
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The Other Americans by Laila Lalami, narrated by Mozhan Marnò, P.J. Ochlan, Adenrele Ojo, Ozzie Rodriguez, Susan Nezami, Ali Nasser, Mark Bramhall, Max Adler, and Meera Simhan, is less the story of the murder of Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant, and more about the other Americans in their circle. Driss was a Muslim immigrant who embraced the American Dream and opened his own restaurant in a small town of Mojave, California, and sought to live his dream.

However, his wife, Maryam, doesn’t want to assimilate, and she often praises her dutiful daughter and dentist Salma, but her relationship with her husband and youngest daughter and musician Nora are on shaky ground. These are the main characters as best as I can discern them, excluding Jeremy, a policeman/love interest.

Lalami tackles not only racism and fear, but also the tension between those who are religiously devote and those who are not. There is the young woman who wants to follow her dream but is pulled back home by the death of her father and the obligation she feels toward her family and the Pantry, the restaurant. At the crux is honesty and distrust – the lack of one and the abundance of the other.

Some of these narrators were far better than others – some sounded wooden and others sounded computer generated. Nora’s voice is the most real and engaging. But I also wonder if it is the narrative that made it harder to narrate — some of the dialogue is stilted.

The Other Americans by Laila Lalami was a good read for the topics it covers that book clubs can discuss, but there were far too many characters (who were chapters unto themselves) and their connections were tenuous at best. There are dropped threads in the family narration, like the relationship between the mother and father and impending breakup and the struggles of the dutiful daughter, Salma. The relationships are broken in more ways than one, and they don’t seem to be repaired (at least not satisfactorily) or even talked about again.  Lalami seems to have taken on too much in this ambitious book. For threaded narratives of seemingly unconnected characters, you should try Colum McCann.

RATING: Tercet

About the Author:

Laila Lalami was born in Rabat and educated in Morocco, Great Britain, and the United States. She is the author of five books, including The Moor’s Account, which won the American Book Award, the Arab-American Book Award, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. It was on the longlist for the Booker Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Her most recent novel, The Other Americans, was a national bestseller and a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and the National Book Award in Fiction. Her essays and criticism have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Nation, Harper’s, the Guardian, and the New York Times. She has been awarded fellowships from the British Council, the Fulbright Program, and the Guggenheim Foundation and is currently Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California at Riverside. She lives in Los Angeles.