Her previous novel, “The Moor’s Account,” a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, exploded that myth in a historical novel.
“I think the idea that America is white or was white is really a myth,” Lalami said. The rural setting also offers a counterpoint to the idea that racial and ethnic diversity is something to be found only in coastal, urban areas. it would be much more difficult for me to create the sense of psychological pressure - that it is somebody the family might know who might have been at the wheel of the vehicle,” she said in an interview. “If I were to set this book in a major city like L.A. The evidence is murky, but gradually the truth emerges through the voices of the nine characters who narrate the book, including the dead man, Driss, his family and an immigrant from Mexico who witnessed the crash but is afraid to come forward.Īs an “immigrant by chance,” who settled here after falling in love as a graduate student at the University of Southern California, Lalami said she wanted to write a novel that explores the “unexpected consequences of immigration,” including the prejudice faced by outsiders in an insular community. The victim’s daughter Nora, who returns home from Oakland to grieve with her family, is certain that the death is no accident and presses authorities to track down the driver. The novel opens with the mysterious hit-and-run death of a Moroccan immigrant outside his restaurant on Highway 62, the rural artery that runs along the northern edge of the park. Lalami, a professor at UC Riverside and author of three previous books, will join the Los Angeles Times Book Club July 30 for a conversation about “ The Other Americans.”
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