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My American
My American follows the lives and loves of Amy Lee and Robert Vorst: from a chance childhood meeting to the comic, tragic and romantic trysts that follow. A baker's daughter, Amy has dreams of becoming a writer, whilst Robert is destined to be a doctor. Later, embarking on a lecture tour, Amy is reminded of 'her American' and endeavours to find him amidst Depression-era America.
480 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1939
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About the author
Stella Gibbons
61 books413 followersStella Dorothea Gibbons was an English novelist, journalist, poet and short-story writer.
Her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. A satire and parody of the pessimistic ruralism of Thomas Hardy, his followers and especially Precious Bain by Mary Webb -the "loam and lovechild" genre, as some called it, Cold Comfort Farm introduces a self-confident young woman, quite self-consciously modern, pragmatic and optimistic, into the grim, fate-bound and dark rural scene those novelists tended to portray.
Her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. A satire and parody of the pessimistic ruralism of Thomas Hardy, his followers and especially Precious Bain by Mary Webb -the "loam and lovechild" genre, as some called it, Cold Comfort Farm introduces a self-confident young woman, quite self-consciously modern, pragmatic and optimistic, into the grim, fate-bound and dark rural scene those novelists tended to portray.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
March 31, 2020
As always Stella Gibbons writes an excellent story.
I loved the way the two stories entwined and that Amy and Bob who had met at Kenwood House while young ended up together.
It had me engrossed from the beginning and I'm so glad it had a happy ending!
I loved the way the two stories entwined and that Amy and Bob who had met at Kenwood House while young ended up together.
It had me engrossed from the beginning and I'm so glad it had a happy ending!
September 14, 2015
Another great Stella Gibbons. Loved following Amy's life. Lovely happy story.
July 27, 2014
Everyone knows and loves Gibbons' first novel, Cold Comfort Farm. It's a delight, and as close to Jane Austen as anyone in the 20th century ever got. But Gibbons wrote dozens more, some of them extremely good - I'm thinking of her grown-up versions of classic fairy tales, Starlight and Nightingale Wood, which are both total charmers. My American, alas, is not in that category, although if you're a Gibbons fan ( and I am the President of her lower Manhattan fan club) you'll find lots to admire here. The heroine, Amy Lee, is a beautifully-realized character, lit from within with the desire to write stories. Her desperate childhood is feelingly described: the collapsed and distant father, the kind but loud family who adopt her, the child's need to have a secret inner life of her own.
The American of the title doesn't match this level of writing. His mise en scene, a New England town and an upper-middle class life, are paper mache in contrast to the fine porcelain of the English scenes. Not only that, the manner in which Gibbons pulls her two plots together is distressingly pedestrian.
Still, an uneven Gibbons novel has much to offer, and Amy Lee is a character worth getting to know.
The American of the title doesn't match this level of writing. His mise en scene, a New England town and an upper-middle class life, are paper mache in contrast to the fine porcelain of the English scenes. Not only that, the manner in which Gibbons pulls her two plots together is distressingly pedestrian.
Still, an uneven Gibbons novel has much to offer, and Amy Lee is a character worth getting to know.
November 27, 2015
There are some problems with this - not only do I not much care for 'psychic link'/'destined love' as a plot motif, Gibbons I don't think had ever been to USA, so the American parts of the book are just not in the same class as the London bits, also Amy is a good deal more interesting than Bob (perhaps for a similar reason of familiarity), and the ending moves into a melodramatic mode that is not one of Gibbons' strengths. But the first part in particular, and the sense of London and the feel for the little social distinctions, and Amy as a certain kind of writer, are really so good that I mark it up on that account.
March 29, 2016
Gibbons also wrote Cold Comfort Farm, which I consider a better book. However, I did find this novel charming, often reminiscent of Little Women. Like Jo March, our female lead, Amy Lee, writes stories. As the book opens, she’s a poor, unhappy British girl of 11. She chances to meet an American boy about her age at a mansion on Hampstead Heath that is open for tours. Bob is wealth, happy, and heading back to America the next day.
The story shifts narration between the two countries after that, watching as the two come of age. (They are not pen pals.) It’s the late 1920s, so there’s excitement of prohibition, bootleggers, and gangsters in the U.S., offset by the quieter, but trying life of Amy in London. The oddest quirk was that Bob is said to live in Vine Falls, New Leicester. The author does name real states like Vermont and Louisiana, so I don’t know why she felt making up a state name was necessary.
The book was published in 1939, so the impending world war is barely mentioned. She does acknowledge the war at the very end. Perhaps the public fear made her feel she needed to give them escapist reading. There is sorrow and fright, but not compared to what is coming.
The story shifts narration between the two countries after that, watching as the two come of age. (They are not pen pals.) It’s the late 1920s, so there’s excitement of prohibition, bootleggers, and gangsters in the U.S., offset by the quieter, but trying life of Amy in London. The oddest quirk was that Bob is said to live in Vine Falls, New Leicester. The author does name real states like Vermont and Louisiana, so I don’t know why she felt making up a state name was necessary.
The book was published in 1939, so the impending world war is barely mentioned. She does acknowledge the war at the very end. Perhaps the public fear made her feel she needed to give them escapist reading. There is sorrow and fright, but not compared to what is coming.
January 1, 2021
A romantic read , but beautifully written and plotted.
Amy , the dreamer whose imagination lets her escape the bleak and brutal early years of her life to become the published writer she always dreamed of being. I liked the way her inner life was described but also how Gibbons’ descriptive passages bring London and the Beadings’ home to life and evoke the time.
Robert , a kind and gentle boy whose life is broken when events take a dark turn and he feels unpunished and unable to atone for his actions. Possibly the gangster /thriller theme is less successful but I don’t want to be churlish.
A chance meeting in childhood , never forgotten by either.
‘ Drawbridge let fall. It’s the Lord of us all,
the Dreamer whose dreams come true.’
But sadly it’s 1938.
Amy , the dreamer whose imagination lets her escape the bleak and brutal early years of her life to become the published writer she always dreamed of being. I liked the way her inner life was described but also how Gibbons’ descriptive passages bring London and the Beadings’ home to life and evoke the time.
Robert , a kind and gentle boy whose life is broken when events take a dark turn and he feels unpunished and unable to atone for his actions. Possibly the gangster /thriller theme is less successful but I don’t want to be churlish.
A chance meeting in childhood , never forgotten by either.
‘ Drawbridge let fall. It’s the Lord of us all,
the Dreamer whose dreams come true.’
But sadly it’s 1938.
January 10, 2016
This is such a lovely book - and if you are interested in experiencing the texture and homely detail of life in London in the 1920s/30s - not the glamorous life, but the life of some very ordinary people - or if you are a writer researching the period this book is for you. It is unlike Cold Comfort Farm - not so ironic or funny - although at times it is both - but much more tender and touching. It reads like a dream too, and is a very satisfying love story. Only slight cavil is that I feel the sections in England work better than those in America. I feel they were lived from the inside, where I feel the American stuff is seen from the outside and imagined. Seriously recommend.
January 9, 2021
Charming and so full of authetic writing about London before the Second World War. Fondly imagined stuff about life in America, but the idea of it being the land of plenty while the British struggled with less rings true. Why aren't Gibbons's books more popular over here? Obviously Cold Comfort Farm was greatly helped by there being such an excellent film version with Kate Beckinsale but Gibbons should be better known. Time for another adaption!
May 4, 2019
I love Stella Gibbons’ writing style and she always seems to perfectly capture the atmosphere of the era. Amy Lee is a fantastic little heroine: a writer who needs to get her stories out. Recommended.
December 4, 2020
A story of dreams that are accomplished. And love that never died.
January 11, 2021
I was very excited by the first 150 pages of this book. The story of Amy Lee, an orphan who lived in her own world and feared everything outside of her bedroom, showed great promise. The psychic scars caused by the loss of her beloved mother, and the death of an uncaring, alcoholic father was handled deftly. As Amy retreated into her own fantasy world, she began writing adventure and horror stories to help her cope with her fears until she finally becomes a best-selling author. The book goes off the rails as soon as the American portion of the story begins. Apparently, Gibbons had little contact with Americans or a tin ear, because the people and conversations are absurdly wrong. Her American characters use words like “Fortnight,” “Barrister” and “Shan’t” and seem caricatures taken from 1930’s Hollywood movies (complete with a gangster subplot). By page 250 I had given up and sped read the rest of the almost 500 page book hoping for a bit of redemption. It never came.
January 7, 2015
Finally a Stella Gibbons book I can say I adored. Usually I find her stuff a bit kooky, and while this novel had those elements, its a pretty lovely love story. I did find the lead female slightly twee at times, but that can be forgiven because at most times she is silently strong.
I am not usually one for romance stories, but I felt like reading one and this had been on my bedside table for months. I had started with a Georgette Heyer, but once again I found it tedious. This I loved. My stomach actually did sommersaults in romantic parts. Just lovely, and I will re-read it again one day.
I am not usually one for romance stories, but I felt like reading one and this had been on my bedside table for months. I had started with a Georgette Heyer, but once again I found it tedious. This I loved. My stomach actually did sommersaults in romantic parts. Just lovely, and I will re-read it again one day.
December 1, 2012
I did like the description of the heroine's life as a plucky poor girl in London who becomes a best-selling author. It felt as though Stella pulled a lot of her own experience into the character and her conflicting feelings about other authors, publishing and being a shy famous person. It has a core of realism. But the stuff in the US... well, blah.
December 13, 2016
Charming story of an American boy who meets an English girl when they are young in England and then fate intervenes to bring them back together a dozen years later; sweet story of lives that are a little sad (overshadowed by the Crash of 1929), but love triumphs in the end. Old-fashioned, but in the best sense of the word!
January 26, 2016
A young girl, growing up poor in London, who loves to write and her life. Sort of a character study with magical elements and lots of romance. Very like 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'. What kids can accomplish if they set their minds to it!
March 22, 2024
A very mixed bag. The first half alternates between the difficult life of solitary orphan Amy Lee, who builds herself into a sort of female Robert E Howard, and an American family. The former is gripping and well-told, the latter an exercise in world-building with too much going on, and not much of it of any great interest, to hold the attention.
Gibbons has plunged into this with the conceit that Amy and Bob Vorst are inextricably bound because of a brief chance encounter at the age of eleven. She fails to make anything significant of their encounter to get the reader to buy in, so to try and convince us that these two are destined to fall in love she is forced to resort to increasingly desperate spells of telepathy and telling (not showing). In all gets very silly (might as well have fairies pick them up and fly them across the Atlantic) and mawkish.
Touring the States, Amy is approached by some mad old bat at a party who feels the need to tell her off for writing thrillers and instructs her to try writing "something homey for the womenfolk". There is a rejoinder that every writer should use when given such unwanted advice in such a tone, especially by the 1930s, but instead Amy meekly submits to marriage, enjoys obeying her husband in money matters "as in all things", and gives up the highly lucrative thrillers for much less popular domestic potboilers. I assume this is because Gibbons can't allow her heroine to be so much more successful and talented than the drip she has chosen (or rather, been made by the author to choose) as her lover.
Not only do I not believe for one moment that a "natural" writer like Amy could reinvent her entire style to shift into such a different genre (one that had never interested her before), I also don't believe Gibbons's contrived attempt to get rid of Amy's wealth so as to make her a docile enough partner for the feckless Bob. For ninnyish sentimental reasons she buys a boys' magazine that barely breaks even, but apparently the cost of buying it takes almost all her savings -- this despite having been a world-famous author with a string of huge hits many of which had been turned into movies with big stars like Gary Cooper. Given that the magazine was about to fold if she hadn't bought it, why did she need to throw away the modern equivalent of millions to acquire it? Because Gibbons required that for her story.
Amy spends much of the second half bursting into tears, and after that's over and she's had her last Mystic Meg vision, we get a long postscript in which everybody runs on stage to take a bow. By this point I was wishing the marijuana-crazed (sic) gangster Dan would come back to life and mow them all down with a Tommy gun.
Incidentally, along with the usual clutch of typos I see that the Vintage editors don't know the difference between "born" and "borne". They really are ignoramuses.
Gibbons has plunged into this with the conceit that Amy and Bob Vorst are inextricably bound because of a brief chance encounter at the age of eleven. She fails to make anything significant of their encounter to get the reader to buy in, so to try and convince us that these two are destined to fall in love she is forced to resort to increasingly desperate spells of telepathy and telling (not showing). In all gets very silly (might as well have fairies pick them up and fly them across the Atlantic) and mawkish.
Touring the States, Amy is approached by some mad old bat at a party who feels the need to tell her off for writing thrillers and instructs her to try writing "something homey for the womenfolk". There is a rejoinder that every writer should use when given such unwanted advice in such a tone, especially by the 1930s, but instead Amy meekly submits to marriage, enjoys obeying her husband in money matters "as in all things", and gives up the highly lucrative thrillers for much less popular domestic potboilers. I assume this is because Gibbons can't allow her heroine to be so much more successful and talented than the drip she has chosen (or rather, been made by the author to choose) as her lover.
Not only do I not believe for one moment that a "natural" writer like Amy could reinvent her entire style to shift into such a different genre (one that had never interested her before), I also don't believe Gibbons's contrived attempt to get rid of Amy's wealth so as to make her a docile enough partner for the feckless Bob. For ninnyish sentimental reasons she buys a boys' magazine that barely breaks even, but apparently the cost of buying it takes almost all her savings -- this despite having been a world-famous author with a string of huge hits many of which had been turned into movies with big stars like Gary Cooper. Given that the magazine was about to fold if she hadn't bought it, why did she need to throw away the modern equivalent of millions to acquire it? Because Gibbons required that for her story.
Amy spends much of the second half bursting into tears, and after that's over and she's had her last Mystic Meg vision, we get a long postscript in which everybody runs on stage to take a bow. By this point I was wishing the marijuana-crazed (sic) gangster Dan would come back to life and mow them all down with a Tommy gun.
Incidentally, along with the usual clutch of typos I see that the Vintage editors don't know the difference between "born" and "borne". They really are ignoramuses.
May 10, 2021
Stella Gibbons is justly famous for her classic 'black comedy' ''Cold Comfort Farm'', which relates a story of eccentric, rustic individuals with odd lives in a 1930s Britain far removed from the novels of other more celebrated writers. She began her career in journalism & became a fine story-teller with a very good feel for characters with an individuality that borders on the bizarre.
In this 1939 tale of Amy Lee, orphaned in her early teens in north London, Gibbons draws out the autobiographical threads of her life into an enjoyable tale of triumph over adversity, of perseverence over despair. Amy submits her juvenile scribblings to scrutiny and finds a devoted patron; together, they rescue a failing boy's newspaper from the scrapheap, and Amy's dreams - of which we hear a lot! - come true, especially in her relationship with a young American, Bob!...& it is the coming together of two worlds & two lost souls that give the novel its final twists & turns.
I enjoy finding sadly neglected writers & forgotten, enigmatic titles, & this 470 page saga was well-worth the quiet hours I spent in its pages, partly, as the years it covers were contemporaneous with my own maternal grandmother...& the setting in the narrow streets around Ludgate Circus which have been such a part of my own family history...a fact I never tired of telling to bus-loads of visitors on the guided tours I used to do. "These are my streets...they are in my soul!'', as I pointed to the dome of St Paul's & gestured at the newspaper offices that lined Fleet Street.
Stella Gibbons trod these historic pavements & her entertaining novel reflects her lowly London roots as colourfully as she unveils the energies of provincial America in the second half of the Amy Lee story.
In this 1939 tale of Amy Lee, orphaned in her early teens in north London, Gibbons draws out the autobiographical threads of her life into an enjoyable tale of triumph over adversity, of perseverence over despair. Amy submits her juvenile scribblings to scrutiny and finds a devoted patron; together, they rescue a failing boy's newspaper from the scrapheap, and Amy's dreams - of which we hear a lot! - come true, especially in her relationship with a young American, Bob!...& it is the coming together of two worlds & two lost souls that give the novel its final twists & turns.
I enjoy finding sadly neglected writers & forgotten, enigmatic titles, & this 470 page saga was well-worth the quiet hours I spent in its pages, partly, as the years it covers were contemporaneous with my own maternal grandmother...& the setting in the narrow streets around Ludgate Circus which have been such a part of my own family history...a fact I never tired of telling to bus-loads of visitors on the guided tours I used to do. "These are my streets...they are in my soul!'', as I pointed to the dome of St Paul's & gestured at the newspaper offices that lined Fleet Street.
Stella Gibbons trod these historic pavements & her entertaining novel reflects her lowly London roots as colourfully as she unveils the energies of provincial America in the second half of the Amy Lee story.
January 28, 2025
Strange and unsettling romance. Amy Lee is one of Gibbons"s brilliant characters: shy and quiet, intelligent, awkward and with a fabulous gift for writing best-selling children's adventure stories. Orphaned early on, she's taken to live with a noisy working class family who are kind and loving but who don't understand her at all.
Gibbons uses this to portray a fish out of water and illustrate several conflicts when a very introverted and creative person has to live in a busy family. There are some fantastic characters: the loathsome Old Porty and the staff of The Prize. All these show Gibbons's customary skill, insight and humour.
The American section is much less convincing though and I found the ending a bit difficult to like in parts. But there's some good action although I love the descriptions of Amy's solitary life in London and New York.
Gibbons uses this to portray a fish out of water and illustrate several conflicts when a very introverted and creative person has to live in a busy family. There are some fantastic characters: the loathsome Old Porty and the staff of The Prize. All these show Gibbons's customary skill, insight and humour.
The American section is much less convincing though and I found the ending a bit difficult to like in parts. But there's some good action although I love the descriptions of Amy's solitary life in London and New York.
December 28, 2022
I am all in for a modern-day fairytale - I don't need dark twists and nastiness in my reading - I read for pleasure, entertainment, and uplifting enjoyment - and this novel started off wonderfully. I really enjoyed 85% of the book but there were some strange plot developments that made the book weird in the end. I could have done without the whole unbelievable kidnapping plot and the car accident. SOMETHING, I agree, had to move the plot along but these were jarring and did not blend seamlessly into this story. By the time I finished reading this book, I wanted to go to the computer and re-write about 15% of the novel to make it a much more satisfying read/ending.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 22, 2024
Having only read Cold Comfort Farm, an all-time favourite, I was pleased to find My American. It’s very different but absolutely engaging with Amy Lee as a complex heroine. (I wonder if autobiographical?)
The last couple of plot lines disappointed me a little but overall I loved this.
The last couple of plot lines disappointed me a little but overall I loved this.
November 22, 2019
This book has really enjoyable moments but shows it’s age towards the end when Amy finally finds true happiness by marrying a man and having a baby. 😐
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 21, 2021
Brilliant parts, particularly the childhood of the young lady involved but seriously let down by the American portion and the ending ISA bit waek...
April 29, 2022
This novel was beautiful, effortless to read. It was like a warm fire in my heart. Fairytale like in its romanticism. It was a while ago that I inhabited this text but I can easily recall it was a comfort read that made me smile.
January 29, 2014
overly sentimental, belief too hard to suspend
April 11, 2017
Not her best--almost laughably clumsy at times. Only for the most devoted Gibbons reader, I think!
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews