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A review by hilaryreadsbooks
The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
4.0
A Moroccan immigrant is killed in a hit-and-run in a small town in the Mojave Desert. His daughter, Nora, returns back home, determined to figure out who did it—but her homecoming sparks more than what she was anticipating. There is romance, there is deception, and Nora is unsettled by the tarnish spreading over things she once saw as perfect. And what is “home,” truly? Does she really know the people she thought she once knew?
There is a quietude to Laila Lalami’s writing. Despite this book being marketed as a “murder mystery,” there are no thrills, no fast pace. Rather, this book is all about the unveiling of various secrets through the interiorities of the characters; the crime is only the starting point, the stimulus. The story really revolves around two characters—Nora and her love interest, Jeremy—with the other voices stepping in occasionally. There is, therefore, a sort of incompleteness to some of the narrations, which I think is not an indication of incompleteness for the book itself, but rather a statement that not all narratives are ever cleanly completed by the end of a story.
There is a quietude to Laila Lalami’s writing. Despite this book being marketed as a “murder mystery,” there are no thrills, no fast pace. Rather, this book is all about the unveiling of various secrets through the interiorities of the characters; the crime is only the starting point, the stimulus. The story really revolves around two characters—Nora and her love interest, Jeremy—with the other voices stepping in occasionally. There is, therefore, a sort of incompleteness to some of the narrations, which I think is not an indication of incompleteness for the book itself, but rather a statement that not all narratives are ever cleanly completed by the end of a story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Racism, War, and Infidelity