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The Other Americans

Laila Lalami (Goodreads Author)

3.93 · Rating details · 10,750 ratings · 1,377 reviews

National Book Award finalist
Kirkus Prize finalist
Aspen Literary Prize longlist
A Best Book of 2019: NPR, Time, Variety, Bookpage, NYPL
A Washington Post notable book
A Los Angeles Times bestseller

From the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Moor's Account, here is a timely and powerful novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant--at once a family saga, a ...more

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Hardcover, 320 pages

Published March 26th 2019 by Pantheon Books

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Average rating 3.93 ·

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· 10,750 ratings · 1,377 reviews

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Jan 01, 2019 Roxane rated it it was amazing

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.

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Jun 04, 2019 chai ♡ rated it liked it

Shelves: adult, adult-thriller-mystery, poc-rep, adult-contemporary, fiction, read-in-2019, adult-lit, 2019-releases

✧ find this review & others on my blog ✧

“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 in her breastbone 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, ...more

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Apr 07, 2019 Beata rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

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 ...more

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May 09, 2019 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

.....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 ...more

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Feb 16, 2019 Meike rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-read, usa

Now a Finalist for the National Book Award 2019
Now 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 protagoni Now a Finalist for the National Book Award 2019
Now 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 are the dead man's daughter Nora, who tries to make it as a composer in the Bay Area but heads back to the Mojave when she hears about her father's passing, and Jeremy, Nora's former classmate, an ex-Marine who now works as a policeman in their hometown. But we also hear from Nora's mother and sister, the investigating detective and other townfolk - this narrative is extremely well built and the changing perspectives really add to the scope and the suspense of the story. I have a hunch though that people who don't like that kind of thing (e.g. those who felt like There There had too many characters) will struggle with "The Other Americans".

As the title indicates, one main theme of the book is America as a melting pot: Nora's family has Moroccan roots and her parents have fled the unrest in their home country, Jeremy was deployed in Iraq and reflects upon his attitude towards foreigners as enemies versus Nora as his love interest, the investigating detective is black, and there are of course some white peole who have forgotten that they, too, are the descendants of immigrants. But as the characters talk about their own experiences, we also hear about life as a soldier and a policeman, the inner dynamics of families, the opioid crisis, unfaithfulness etc. - yes, it's a broad scope, but I didn't feel like it was too much. Life is complicated, and Lalami does a good job showing a multi-layered cast of people. I also enjoyed how she illuminates the dynamics of insecurity and denial from different angles.

So all in all, this book is fun, intelligent and well-worth reading. ...more

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Jun 12, 2019 Dianne rated it it was ok

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 ...more

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Nov 18, 2019 PorshaJo rated it really liked it

Shelves: challengereads, challengereads-2019, audio

Rating 3.75

One 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 ...more

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Jul 12, 2020 Diane rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobooks, brunch-club, modern-fiction, immigrant-experience

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 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 those because one of the things I enjoyed about this novel was the unfolding of the mystery of what really happened to Driss.

Highly recommended to those who like literary fiction, family dramas, or stories of the immigrant experience in America (Nora's parents were from Morocco). I loved this book so much I plan on reading the author's other works.

Opening Passage

My father was killed on a spring night four years ago, while I sat in the corner booth of a new bistro in Oakland. Whenever I think about that moment, these two contradictory images come to me: my father struggling for breath on the cracked asphalt, and me drinking champagne with my roommate, Margo. We were celebrating because Margo had received a grant from the Jerome Foundation to work on a new chamber piece, her second big commission that year. We'd ordered steamed mussels and shared an entree and lingered late into the night. The waiter was trying to convince us to get the chocolate mousse for dessert when my phone rang.

I have no clear memory of what happened next. I must have told Margo the news. We must have paid the bill, put on our coats, walked the five blocks back to our apartment. A bag was packed, somehow. But I do remember driving home on the 5 freeway, in the foggy darkness that cloaked almond groves and orange orchards, all the while dreaming up alternate explanations: perhaps the sheriff's department had misidentified the body, or the hospital had swapped my father's records with someone else's. These possibilities were far-fetched, I knew, and yet I clung to them as I drove. Under my headlights, I could see only twenty feet ahead. But the fog lifted at dawn, and by the time I reached the Mojave, the sun was out and the sky a brazen blue.

...more

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Mar 28, 2019 Anna Luce rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2019-reviews, ebooks-overdrive, disappointing-reads, inane-protagonists, 6-so-so-reads

★★✰✰✰ 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.

NARRATION
Initially I thought that this book was doing something similar to Everything Here Is Beautiful wh ...more

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Jan 01, 2019 Thomas rated it really liked it

Shelves: adult-fiction, realistic-fiction

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 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 favored Nora. In their search for answers about how Griss died that night, the family, and Nora in particular, will come face to face with some startling truths about their small town's true colors across race, religion, and class.

The Other Americans intertwines family drama with murder mystery quite well. I loved Laila Lalami's nuanced portrayal of immigrant family dynamics, like Maryam's longing for something different than the life she sailed into, or Driss's determination to make it in America with his diner despite his dissatisfying marriage. The envy, difference, and hidden pain between Nora and Salma stood out as one of the most humanizing aspects of the novel, showing how these women's lives diverged, both in contrast to stereotypes about women of color. The murder mystery moved the plot forward at an enjoyable pace, maintaining the tension of the narrative throughout the entirety of the novel.

Overall, a great novel that felt like a slightly more plot-focused version of A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza, with slightly similar vibes to Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng (both The Other Americans and Everything I Never Told You start with the death of a family member and dissect family dynamics from there.) A part of me wanted a little more fleshing out of the dynamics between and within characters (e.g., Salma and her grief, or more room for Maryam's disappointment), but that may be unrealistic of me given how every part of the novel felt necessary, or at least for the murder plot device. Maybe taking out Coleman and Efraín's perspectives woudl have helped focus more on the family, but those two characters also contributed to the story. Either way, an entertaining novel that makes several smart points about race and racism and existing in America today, for all of us. ...more

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Mar 13, 2019 Jill rated it liked it

Shelves: everyone-loves-it-but-me

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 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 who offers Nora intimacy, Anderson and his son A.J. who own the next-door bowling alley and haven’t been able to take hold of the American Dream, a black detective Erica Coleman who has not escaped racist slurs, and so on. Each is isolated in his or her own pain, a large part of which is caused by religious, race, class, or immigration differences.

But when I closed the book, I felt strangely unsatisfied and I had to think hard about what was missing for me. Certainly, Laila Lalami is a very good writer and her theme couldn’t be more appropriate.

And yet. Part of it is that the chorus of nine alternating voices, which take turns in narrating the book, become indistinguishable. There is a deadened or toneless quality to the narration as one after the other of the narrators “takes the stage”, each sounding very much like the one before.

Moreover, the potency of this powerful theme – for me – never reaches full boil. I’ve come across these characters before: the “lost” daughter who chooses to deviate from traditional familial expectations, the veteran who can’t leave the traumas of wartime behind, the police detective with her own family issues who must prove herself, and so forth. I could pretty much predict the path their journey would take. It’s not that these issues aren’t important ones – they absolutely are – but I feel as if other writers have handled them more compellingly. This is, of course, one reader’s opinion and others may relate far more.
...more

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Jul 07, 2019 Paltia rated it really liked it

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 ...more

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Mar 28, 2019 Lou rated it liked it · review of another edition

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 ...more

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Nov 23, 2019 Anne Bogel rated it really liked it

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 ...more

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Apr 29, 2019 Kathleen rated it it was amazing

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 ...more

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Apr 09, 2019 Barbara rated it liked it

Shelves: adult-fiction, crime-mystery

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 ...more

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Mar 26, 2019 Michelle rated it it was amazing

Shelves: first-to-read, 2020-tob-longlist, favorites, 2019, best-book-of-the-year, march-2019

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 ...more

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Feb 22, 2019 Sarah rated it liked it

Shelves: netgalley, fiction

The Other Americans was an all round pretty solid read, which missed the mark a little for this reader.

The story hinges around the death of a Moroccan man, Driss, killed in a hit-and-run accident in the U.S., where he had lived for the past few decades with his family. We follow the investigation into his death and the impact it has on his youngest daughter, Nora. The story is told from a number of viewpoints (too many for me - it got a little confusing at times) of key characters in the narrati ...more

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Mar 06, 2019 switterbug (Betsey) rated it it was amazing

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 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 impact in a darkened intersection.”

Moroccan-born Driss Guerraoui, a husband, father, and grandfather, is a diner owner in a small Mojave desert community. He’s also the victim of the hit-and-run, while walking to his car from work one evening. His two adult daughters and wife, Maryam, grieve in separate ways, often rupturing old wounds and inciting new ones. An undocumented worker, Efraín, witnessed the incident but is afraid to come forward.

The primary protagonist, however, is Nora, Driss’ youngest (and favorite) daughter and the non-conformist of the two. She’s a jazz pianist and performer with more rejection notices than work; her mother pointedly and wearily saying “She has her head in the clouds,” a tired refrain to her daughter. Nora refuses to settle for a pragmatic, secure job, like her sister, the dentist. It was only her father that understood this, which makes his death even harder to bear.

Returning to the Mojave for the funeral, feeling unmoored and paralyzed by her father’s death, Nora stays longer and begins a romance with a past schoolmate, Jeremy, an Iraqi war veteran-turned-cop, also a central character. They are very different people with allied needs, but Nora has difficulty trusting due to past struggles. The story highlights several ugly stereotypes without condescending to the reader. Driss, for example, is highly educated and an atheist, but is often referred to by others as “the Muslim.” Nora has been stymied and bullied by others since childhood, and finds solace in her music.

Told in first-person POV, the various characters alternate with their own or overlapping stories. The theme is home, identity, and loss, and the title suggests the outliers, the outsiders, the “other” Americans. But a sharp pivot shattered me, also, that turns the title inside out and upside down—and that is all I will say. I read this in two days; the pages turn easily and the prose is strong and vivid. Lalami is superb at providing the fine points of a scene, the flourish of details that happen simultaneously, like the sound of keys jingling or a cat turning its head, all the while bolstering the scene at hand. It all hits hard and deep by the end. I'm in awe of her sympathy for all characters. ...more

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May 24, 2019 Judith E rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

In addition to the regular convoluted family dynamics of adult children, aging parents, and family tragedy, the Guerraoui’s are Moroccan immigrants dealing with all that comes from being an Arab in America. They are labeled as suspicious from the minute their name is pronounced. Their California is a place where hurtful racial slurs continue to be spoken by ignorant people.

I enjoyed the structure of the book in that each chapter was a first person narrative of each character. Their individual c ...more

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Apr 17, 2019 Dan rated it liked it

Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans is compulsively readable, carefully plotted, and well paced. Lalami fills it with empathy for her characters, even its least sympathetic and most despicable characters. Although not pollyannish, The Other Americans is the rare current novel that leaves at least this reader feeling somewhat better about today’s United States.

The Other Americans contains few surprises with either its plot or its characters. As you read Lalami’s latest novel, you may not know exac ...more

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Oct 01, 2019 Katie Long rated it it was ok

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.

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Apr 23, 2019 Robert Blumenthal rated it it was amazing

I became familiar with Laila Lalami through her writings for The Nation, and I have always thought very highly of her as a writer. I read The Moor's Account and was most impressed by her as a novelist as well. And she knocks it out of the park again in this tale depicting the immigrant experience in these United States and all the highs and lows of such.

The tale revolves around the death of a patriarch in a Moroccan American family living near Joshua Tree National Park in the desert in Southern ...more

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Dec 17, 2018 Pia rated it it was ok

I freely admit that I came to this book with expectations. Laila Lalami's last novel was a Pulitzer Finalist and I'd had it on my to-read list for a while so when I got my hands on an advance proof copy of her forthcoming book, I was excited to see what kind of writer she is.

This is not literary fiction. It reads kind of like a formulaic genre mystery trying to be something more. Sometimes the prose is nice. But too often it's cringeworthy. If Lalami was trying for genre mystery, I think she mo ...more

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Mar 31, 2019 Roman Clodia rated it liked it · review of another edition

Solid, straightforward, predictable

"The present could never be untethered from the past, you couldn't understand one without the other."

As is the case with the quotation above, this book tells us things that are true but that are hardly original or novel in any way. Part love story, part excavation of family secrets, the plot is precipitated by the hit and run death of Driss, a Moroccan immigrant to America and the father of Nora, one of the main characters.

It's not hard to see where the whole t ...more

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Apr 29, 2019 Keyona rated it it was ok

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 ...more

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Jun 13, 2019 Jan rated it really liked it

Lalami is a versatile writer, to follow The Moor’s Account with this shifting POV novel about love, grief, the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and interconnected lives centered on a Moroccan-American family in a small town in the Mojave Desert. The tone is fairly cool and the characters were flawed enough to be annoying at times, but they kept me going.

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Dec 04, 2019 Barbara rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019-reads

I accidently deleted this from my books but luckily found I had saved the review,

The family at the center of this novel are Moroccan immigrants to California. They ended up in the Mojave Desert after temporarily living with a family member in LA who sponsored them when the father of the family feared imminent arrest as political upheaval took hold in their country. They moved to the Mojave Desert, where there were opportunities for work, and bought a doughnut shop. After 9/11, it was firebombed I accidently deleted this from my books but luckily found I had saved the review,

The family at the center of this novel are Moroccan immigrants to California. They ended up in the Mojave Desert after temporarily living with a family member in LA who sponsored them when the father of the family feared imminent arrest as political upheaval took hold in their country. They moved to the Mojave Desert, where there were opportunities for work, and bought a doughnut shop. After 9/11, it was firebombed and they had to start again. Driss and his wife Maryam have two daughters, Salma and Nora. Salma, born in Morocco, is the dutiful daughter, who goes to dental school, marries a fellow student, who is also Muslim, and has twins. Nora, the US born daughter, is a rebel, composer of modern music and jazz that her mother doesn’t understand, and faces disappointment after disappointment in her career, and personal relationships. After a bitter breakup, she leaves Oakland, and takes refuge bac in the desert with her parents. This Moroccan family are “other Americans”, and their experiences of marginalization in their community never cease. The novel opens with the death of Driss, who is killed by a hit-and-run driver as he leaves work late at night. Nora refuses to accept the verdict of accidental death, and persists in pushing the police to get answers.

The story is told in short chapters narrated by various characters in the story. A primary character is Jeremy, an Army vet who fought in Iraq, who is a Sheriff’s deputy. He and Nora were in the same class in high school, and when her father dies, he goes to the family home to offer condolences. Jeremy’s friend Fierro served with him in Iraq, is recently divorced and dealing with unmanageable anger and outbursts of violence. The story of Jeremy and Fierro is a portrait of people in the story I came to also see also as “other Americans”. These white, working class men reminded me of characters that populate Willy Vlautin’s novels. Willy Vlautin writes about small towns in the rural West, and Jeremy and Fierro would fit right into any of his novels. In this excerpt, Jeremy is rethinking his friendship with Fierro:
That was the last time I saw him, though I heard from him a few more times….
The Marines brought us together, two dumb kids from the desert, and though we fought side by side for years, in the end we’d come out just as we’d gone in : two different people. Now it was time for us to go our separate ways. (p.259).

Nora is a misfit who didn’t fit in during elementary, middle or high school. She runs away from her family to move to Oakland, and then leaves the city to go back to the desert. As the story develops, we find many people are not what they seem, including members of Nora’s family. It is at heart the portrait of Nora who is caught between her family and her need to get away. But it is more than that. It is a novel that tells an interlacing story of people living on the margin, in a small desert town in the American West. Highly recommended.
...more

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Nov 22, 2019 Alex rated it it was ok

2.5

I really wish I could give it more but it just felt like Lalami was trying to do too much, cramming in every pressing theme while not really offering anything interesting in terms of storytelling.

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Oct 21, 2019 Julia Phillips rated it it was amazing

Masterly

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About Laila Lalami

Laila Lalami

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Laila Lalami was born in Rabat and educated in Morocco, Great Britain, and the United States. She is the author of four novels, including The Moor's Account, which won the American Book Award, the Arab-American Book Award, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and The Other Americans, which was a national bestseller and a finalist for the National ...more

Books by Laila Lalami

Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America

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Quotes from The Other Americans

“Perhaps memory is not merely the preservation of a moment in the mind, but the process of repeatedly returning to it, carefully breaking it up in parts and assembling them again until we can make sense of what we remember.” — 13 likes

“My mother had to leave many traditions behind and the more time passed, the more they mattered to her.” — 10 likes

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Preview — The Other Americans by Laila Lalami

The Other Americans

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Laila Lalami

Books by Laila Lalami

Articles featuring this book

Trivia About The Other Americans

Quotes from The Other Americans

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Discuss This Book