America America

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



From the Hardcover edition.