Remarkable, timely novel. Impeccably written story about a hit and run, a family that must grapple with their grief as they try to make sense of why they’ve lost Driss, the patriarch, and the slowly unraveling mystery of who is responsible for the unthinkable. I love the depth of character here for Nora and Jeremy. The narrative is good from many points of view but theirs is the heart of this story and what a beautiful beating heart it is.

“Growing up in this town, I had long ago learned that the savagery of a man named Mohammed was rarely questioned, but his humanity always had to be proven.” The hit-and-run killing of Driss Guerraoui echoed through his daughter’s mind with the vitality of a heartbeat. The pain of it is goading her to seek answers, and it was a tether that held her to the small Mojave Desert town. But the more Nora tries, the further her hopes sink, as inexorably as if they are weighted with stones. “Had he su

Laila Lalami is gradually becoming one of the writers I am definitely going to follow. Her writing style and character development is exquisite and absolutely to my liking. The Other Americans does not belong to the page-turner category, but for me it was!! I could not put down this novel revolving around a seemingly hit-and-run fatal accident in which a Moroccan immigrant is killed. Driss and his family left Morocco many years ago escaping political persecution, and, though with difficulty, the...

.....Men speaking in hushed voices in the mortuary.....An ingredient was always missing, but way too many different types of milk in America. ( I agree).........Maryam, ( widow), had to leave many Moroccan traditions behind. And the more that time passed....the more they mattered to her.....even in death.....the funeral seemed wrong to Maryam. ....Nora, A STAND OUT CHARACTER, a jazz composer, youngest daughter, ( her father’s favorite, and allied), was often criticized as a child growing up by b...

Finalist for the National Book Award 2019Now THAT is what I call a page-turner! Lalami's polyphonic novel revolves around the death of a Moroccan immigrant who got hit by a car in front of his restaurant - was this an accident and the driver (who fled the scene) didn't see his victim because it was already dark, or did he intentionally kill the man? For me, the appeal of the story lies in the changing points of view, as every chapter is told from a different perspective: The main protagonists ar...

I expected more from this because I SO loved Lalami’s last book, The Moor's Account. I thought that was just brilliant. This is something completely different, a lackluster combination of domestic drama, light suspense, romance and immigration/cultural issues. Being neither one thing nor another didn’t work for me. Additionally, Lalami has a good-sized group of rotating narrators who take turns unfolding the story in short chapters. None of the personalities struck a chord with me; in fact, they...

Rating 3.75One story told from alternating view points. A family moved here long ago from Morocco and has two daughters. They are different, look different, eat different things, etc. The father opens a diner and one night, late at the dinner, he is struck by a car and killed. A hit and run. This tells his story but it's also more the story of family and daily lives of these characters and the people that come into their lives. I liked this one but at one point it started to drag just a bit. It

| | blog | tumblr | ko-fi | |2.5 stars (rounded down)I'm really disappointed by this book. It tells a predictable and unevenly paced story which focuses on flat stereotypes whose different point of views merge into one indistinguishable passive voice.Not a bad novel but...far from good. If you haven't read novels similar to this one you might be able to look past its cliches and its poorly orchestrated narrative. NARRATIONInitially I thought that this book was doing something similar to Everyt...

This is a gorgeous novel, so richly layered and beautifully written. Our heroine is Nora, who returns to her hometown when her father, Driss, is killed in a suspicious accident. Each chapter is told from a different character's perspective, so we get to meet Nora's family, including her judgmental mother and her bitter sister, and also Jeremy, one of Nora's friends from high school who still has a crush on her.There are other characters who also get to talk, but I'll let the reader discover thos...

A timely page-turner about a Moroccan family reunited by the death of their patriarch, Driss Guerraoui, a father who immigrated to the United States in search of a safer life. Nora, the younger of his two daughters and a jazz composer, returns home upon hearing about how her father died in a car accident. There, in Mojave, California, she reconnects with her mother, a woman who years for the life she had before immigrating, and her sister, Salma, a successful dentist envious of how her father fa...

The title – The Other Americans – provides an undeniable clue as to what Laila Lalami wants to achieve in this, her third novel. The hit-and-run death of Moroccan diner owner Driss Guerraoui, creating seismic waves that introduce us to a cast of characters with his single daughter, Nora, a struggling composer at the center of it.All the main characters are American outsiders – the Moroccan Guerraoi family (Driss, his wife Maryam, Nora, and her sister Salma), a traumatized Iraqi veteran Jeremy wh...

3.5 stars: “The Other Americans” Is an interesting read in that it’s billed a bit like a hit and run mystery that has an immigrant story as background. Or is the hit and run mystery the background of an immigrant’s story? This is a character-driven story that provides background for motivation and opinions/beliefs of each character. All the characters feel not only misunderstood but also marginalized. There are Moroccan immigrants, undocumented working immigrants, and a black woman in a male dom...

A Moroccan immigrant is killled by a bit and run driver. The fact that he’s an immigrant is crucial to this story. There he was trying to mind his own business stepping off the curb after closing his shop. Why him? Did he do something to deserve this? Does he have enemies in this post 9/11 time? His family is astounded and overcome with grief. At first they have no answers. Each character has a chance to not only express their reactions but to travel back in time looking for clues and understand...

Moroccan-American novelist Leila Lalami is a multiple award-winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist; here, she has essentially written a story exploring the secrets families keep and the diverse, multicultural cast were a joy to behold. However, my primary issue was the ever-changing point-of-view switching between about ten different characters which was unnecessarily complicated, and what made it worse was that they each sounded the same and could not be differentiated from one another. Very monoto...

My husband has been pushing me to read the 2014 novel The Moor's Account from Pulitzer Prize-finalist Lalami, but this is the first of her books I've read. The story begins when a Moroccan immigrant is hit and killed by a speeding car not far from his California home. What follows is part procedural, part family saga, part love story, and part American origin story.I read this on my Kindle, and the plot was complex enough that I strongly suspect I would have been happier reading this on paper, o...

Brilliant. Moroccan-American Lalami explores the issues of immigration, cultural diversity, and white resentment in a small town near Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. The hit-and-run death of Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant causes huge ripples across his family and the community. Who could have done this—and not even stop to help?Lalami follows the ripples caused by Driss’ death through multiple voices. There is Nora, his youngest daughter who is pursuing music composition...

The Other Americans is a multilayered novel. It is all at once a family saga, a mystery, social commentary and a love story. Told from the perspectives of the victim, his immigrant family, neighbors and police, The Other Americans not only provides a clear lense for racial and class tensions, but also allows insight into the burdens our protectors carry. Although the book description focuses on the hit and run accident that claimed the life of patriarch Driss Guerraroui, at the forefront of this...

There's so much wrong with this book it's not even funny. I'm trying to figure out where all these 5 stars are coming from and if we all read the same book. This was a classic case of the author doing too damn much and not executing it properly. Every issue was completely surface level. Zenophobia, sexism, racism, drug abuse, you name it. It was dumped into this book. I'm always here for a good family saga but this was not it and a complete fail. At the very far background was a "mystery" and if...

Lalami is trying to do a lot here, frankly too much. Islamaphobia, undocumented immigration, treatment of veterans, parental expectation, work/life balance, opioid abuse, gun rights, racism etc... are all brought up over the course of the narrative, but because there are so many issues to explore, none can be examined in any meaningful way. I get that she is going for “this is America now” but what’s the point if we’re only skimming the surface? 2.5 rounded down.

My perspective on reading this book is to forgo guessing what is going to happen, or trying to determine how accurate your suspicions. Just dive in and let it gently steal through you. There’s a Who and Why regarding a hit-and-run that resulted in death, which is the ballast of the plot, at least in a pressing sense. The other characters are immediate family or characters connected to the family or incident in some way. “What a fragile thing a heart was. So easy to fool. To break. To stop on imp...