A Good American
Hardcover, 387 pages, Penguin Group USA, List Price: $25.95 | purchase
Book Summary
The Meisenheimer family struggles to find their place among the colorful residents of their new American hometown, including a giant teenage boy, a pretty schoolteacher whose lessons consist of more than music, and a spiteful, bicycle-riding dwarf.
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Critics' Lists: Summer 2012
15 Summer Reads Handpicked By Indie Booksellers
The tile of this debut novel says it all. A young couple, Jette and Frederick, leave their homes and families in Germany and come to America in the early 1900s. As the story evolves, the two discover what it takes to be "a good American." The diner Frederick opens becomes the focal point of many lives in their small town in the middle of America, and Frederick is the patriarch not only of this small microcosm of the town, but also of an expanding family. Peripheral inhabitants include a
—Rona Brinlee
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