America America, Ethan Canin
America America, Ethan Canin
List: $25.00 | Sale: $17.50
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America America

Author: Ethan Canin

Narrator: Robertson Dean

Unabridged: 15 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/24/2008

Synopsis

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.

(“Musee des Beaux Arts" by W. H. Auden used by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd.; © 1939 by W. H. Auden. All rights reserved.)

About The Author

Ethan Canin is the author of six books of fiction, including the story collections Emperor of the Air and The Palace Thief and the novels For Kings and Planets and Carry Me Across the Water. He is on the faculty of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives in Iowa, California, and northern Michigan.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Nancy on March 06, 2019

I bought the book for 50 cents at Big Lots. It sat on my shelf for at least a year. I picked it up and fell in love. I did not want to read it too fast, yet did not want to put it down. In his blurb, Pat Conroy confesses, "I love this book." Well, Pat, I do too. I finished it over a week ago, and th......more

Goodreads review by Ron on December 19, 2013

America America is Ethan Canin's best novel, but its timing is unnerving. His ruminative story begins with a funeral for the country's greatest liberal senator, whose presidential ambitions were smashed years earlier by the death of a young campaign aide in a drunk-driving accident. The novel really......more

Goodreads review by Kristy on September 05, 2008

wow this was a great book. Ethan Canin is a talent beyond his years. His writing style is calm and fluid. One of the best aspects of the book is the reflections that the narrator makes on his own daughters. It isn't just a story about hard work, ambition and the great American way. Canin shows us th......more

Goodreads review by Erasmia on February 15, 2024

Αυτό το βιβλίο το πήρα τυχαία, μου άρεσε το εξώφυλλο. Δεν περίμενα να με κρατήσει, υπό κανονικές συνθήκες θα βαριόμουν μ ' αυτό το θέμα για την πολιτική στις ΗΠΑ, τους προέδρους κ τους γερουσιαστές. Αυτό το έργο όμως αποδείχτηκε εξαιρετικά καλογραμμένο με αποτέλεσμα να δυσκολεύομαι να το αφήσω απ τα......more

Quotes

“A story in which the audacity of hope confronts the tenacity of power . . . 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 Book World

“[A] many-layered epic of class, politics, sex, death, and social history . . . Its reach is wide and its touch often masterly.”—John Updike, The New Yorker

“An intoxicating big book–in both size and ambition. Thrilling . . . luminous.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“A sprawling, captivating, timely work of art . . . Beautifully written, thoughtful, and imbuing all of its principal characters with dignity and understanding, America America is uncommon, ambitious and, like many of its characters, larger than life. . . . A novel that reminds us that fiction matters.”—Houston Chronicle

“Powerful and haunting, a major work.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“A brilliant, serious book for serious readers.” —San Diego Union-Tribune

“Riveting and thought-provoking . . . [Canin] has unleashed all his considerable skills here, and it’s our reward that America America turns out to be his best and most affecting work.”—Miami Herald

“The most mature and accomplished novelist of his generation.”—National Public Radio

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