Laila Lalami's The Other Americans
If I have any complaints about Lalami's earlier novels, it's that they were sometimes a little bit dense, but this one was getting great reviews so I wanted to give it a chance--and I found it VERY readable, with great writing, while still touching on serious themes. It centers on the death of an immigrant from Morocco in a hit-and-run; was it an accident or not? And it's narrated by a really interesting cast of characters--primarily the man's daughter and wife; a childhood friend of his daughter, a war vet who is now a sheriff's deputy; and an illegal immigrant who witnessed the death; but there are others as well (including the man himself, as flashbacks). I did find the antagonists somewhat clumsily written (or maybe I just don’t spend time with openly racist white people and so it just seemed that way), but otherwise this was a beautiful book. A/A-.
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