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America America: A Novel
by: Ethan Canin

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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780679456803
ISBN: 0679456805
Label: Random House
Manufacturer: Random House
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 480
Publication Date: June 24, 2008
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: June 24, 2008
Studio: Random House
Sales Rank: 4225

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Editorial Review:

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

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- America, All Over Again
Ethan Canin's new novel explores the complicated dance between character and power in American politics. It is the story of three idealistic men whose lives intertwine in the presidential campaign of 1972. New York Senator Henry Bonwiller, proven champion of the working man and passionate foe of the War in Vietnam, seeks the Democratic nomination. We know from the first scene, his funeral three decades later, that he did not succeed, and we sense that some great tragedy unfolded. As the story of 1972 unfolds, we watch the progress of the campaign from its strategic center, the estate of Liam Metarey, heir to an industrial empire and a legacy of responsibility for the people who fill its homes and factories. Once Bonwiller decides to run for President, the gifted and honorable Metarey throws ... Read More

Rating:

- outstanding
I have read about 150 novels in the past year, and this is the best. Outstanding characters, wonderful imagery and transitions. Well worth the read.

Rating:

- Technical Masterpiece but lacking substance
You know this book was strange. I really liked some things about it but some thing just didn't do it for me. First off, I think the Narrator (not the author) is so pompous it makes me sick. lol He spends the whole book trying to convince us that he is just some working class kid who worked hard and got ahead. Ummm... Not really.

The language of this book is beautiful and very eloquent. It has a certain calmness that is very pleasant early on but gets sort of annoying and ends up almost seeming like the story is monotone. I felt like the whole book was leading up to some prolific statement about humankind that never got made, at least not in any amazing way.

I heard Canin on NPR and was so admiring of his personality and take on life that I went out and bought the book. ... Read More

Rating:

- a View of America
This novel is a fine piece of writing...Ethan Canin knows how emotions insinuate themselves into leaders and followers and lives in general. I highly recommend this book to followers of the on going drama of life on this planet.

Rating:

- Ckass, come ro order
I read this book, America, America based upon several hyping reviews. I certainly will not bother recounting the plot as several of our reviewers have done so.

The story is predictable , with thinly drawn characters, and more time spent on describing a marsh beside a cemetery than the main characters who are one=dimensional. The book might well have been weitten by one of Canin's students at the Iowa Writing Workshop.

I will say that the story might easily find its way into central casting as it reads like an outline for a movie script. Very good publicity, very disappointing book. Based upon some of the reviewers here I am not sure I read the same, slow moving book. if I were the teacher I would give it a C.

Books : America America: A Novel