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America America: A Novel | 
| Author: Ethan Canin
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $27.00
Buy Used: $14.99
You Save: $12.01 (44%)
New (46) Used (9) Collectible (9) from $14.99
Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 6374
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 480
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0679456805
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780679456803
ASIN: 0679456805
Publication Date: June 24, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: gently read - clean copy - slight wear to dust cover
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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 satisfyingand important awork of fictionas 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: Read 24 more reviews...
 America, All Over Again August 19, 2008
Janet Tarasovic (Richmond, VA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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 everything he has into running the campaign.
The third figure is narrator Corey Sifter, who recounts the thirty-year-old story to a young intern at the small-town newspaper he owns. The son of hard-working, uneducated parents, he grew up learning integrity, discipline, and respect for the Metareys. At sixteen he was hired to do odd jobs on their estate, where he was treated like a son. His work involved him peripherally in the Bonwiller campaign, but was never privy to the motivations and manipulations of the powerful men he served. Even at fifty, he can only guess at the answers to the questions both men left behind when the campaign ended in tragedy. His innocent, veiled viewpoint, coupled with his impeccable honesty, makes him the perfect narrator of a story that is all about the difficulty of finding truth, both factual and moral.
As Corey unravels the story of the campaign, we move back and forth in his life, seeing the boy awakening to the ways of the world, the sadder-but-wiser young man out on his own, and the still-wondering adult pondering the fates of his own parents and children. Corey's steady voice and unwavering integrity provide the anchor that makes the complicated narrative work. We learn the truth--or what might be the truth--about Metarey and Bonwiller in bits and pieces, as Corey did, and Canin's timing in revealing crucial details while moving back and forth across decades is remarkable. The final revelation of what doomed the campaign was, for me at least, surprising, heart-breaking, and perfect.
America America is an ambitious title for a story so grounded in a few individual lives, but the more I think about it, the more apt it is. The America of 1972 was not so different from America today, with opposition to the war enervating the administration and passionate liberals pushing for change. Then and now, power corrupts, cherished heroes inevitably reveal their dark sides, and the public must decide which sins are necessary and which are unforgiveable. Canin seems to be suggesting that it is only by staying out of politics that a person can keep his integrity. I hope he's wrong about that.
Read this novel for its artful story-telling, its complex characters, its insight, and its reminder that hard work and humility, not power, are the tools we need in pursuit of happiness.
outstanding August 16, 2008
terry broxson (flower mound ,texas)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
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.
 Technical Masterpiece but lacking substance August 15, 2008
J. Parent (San Jose, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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. Overall I think I am disappointed and it wasn't what I was expecting. I thought it would be more like the Great Gatsby but it turned out to be more like a John Grisham novel (even though I've never read any) lol.
I do have to say though that the ending of the book was amazing and both the prose and the content were some of the best written work I've ever read. If the whole book had been like that, this would have been a masterpiece. I would recommend the book, especially to any writers who want to sharpen their style.
a View of America August 14, 2008
Anthony W. Dopke (west coast of Illinois)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
 Ckass, come ro order August 11, 2008
S. Kapp (Miami, FL)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
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