THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2021 • THE BULLETIN
GO! MAGAZINE • PAGE 7
LOCAL LITERARY HIGHLIGHTS
bendbulletin.com/goread
Authors Lalami, Yang to appear
in weekend Novel Idea events
BY DAVID JASPER • The Bulletin
T
he 2021 A Novel Idea … Read Together, concludes this weekend with virtual appearances by this year’s authors, Laila Lalami and Kelly
Yang. Their books are timely choices for Deschutes Public Library system’s annual community reading celebration. Though landing in
different genres and targeted at different audiences, “The Other Americans,” Lalami’s gripping social novel set in motion by a mysterious
death, and “Front Desk,” Yang’s tween novel about a young girl who works at a motel, have at least one major thing in common: the experiences of
immigrants in contemporary America.
‘THE OTHER AMERICANS’
In “The Other Americans,” the main
character Nora, an emerging but strug-
gling music composer, receives word
that her Moroccan immigrant father
has been killed by a hit-and-run driver.
She rushes to her hometown in the Mo-
jave Desert — evocatively written and
practically a character in itself — to help
her mother and figure out the fate of
the family restaurant — reconnecting
somewhat with her adolescence, and
her former high school bandmate Jer-
emy, whose become a cop after a stint
in Iraq.
The book is what’s called polyphonic,
the story unfolding from multiple
points of view, not just main character
Nora: her mother Maryam, sister Salma,
Jeremy, accident witness Efrain, a Mex-
ican immigrant who fears coming for-
ward, and even the possible culprits be-
hind the death of her father, Driss.
As NPR’s 2019 review of the book
noted, Lalami, who holds a doctorate in
linguistics, is “superb at creating differ-
ent cadences on the page.”
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