Publisher's Synopsis
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME Timely, riveting, and unforgettable, The Other Americans is 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 in California, Driss Guerraoui-father, husband, business owner, Moroccan immigrant-is hit and killed by a speeding car. The aftermath of his death brings together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui's daughter Nora, a jazz composer returning to the small town in the Mojave she thought she'd left for good; her mother, Maryam, who still pines for her life in the old country; Efraìn, an undocumented witness whose fear of deportation prevents him from coming forward; Jeremy, an old friend of Nora's and an Iraqi 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, each in their own voice, connections among them emerge. Driss's family confronts its secrets, a town faces its hypocrisies, and love-messy and unpredictable-is born.
Winner of the Arab American Book Award in Fiction
Finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Fiction
Finalist for the California Book Award
Longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize
A Los Angeles Times bestseller
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Time, NPR, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Dallas Morning News, The Guardian, Variety, and Kirkus Reviews
