The Other Americans by Laila Lalami

The Other Americans by Laila Lalami

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A lyrical exploration of tragedy, The Other Americans is an incredibly poised and eloquent novel. One night Driss Guerraoui crosses the road and is killed by a speeding car; the novel follows what happens next, spiralling through a series of chapters told by different voices in and out of the neighbourhood. These are the people impacted by Driss’s death – his wife, his daughters, but also the neighbours, the police, and the community at large. It’s a powerful read, and one that works with a lot of subtlety and control to figure out issues of identity, representation and otherness. What is America? Who is America?

Reading this as an outsider to America is a fascinating exercise and a rewarding one; stylistically Lalami is incredible here, working her way through a tightly structured polyphonic text – albeit one where certain voices and characters work better than others – and delivering a restrained and somewhat elegiac examination of identity. I would have welcomed much more about certain characters but I also recognise that there’s a balance to be formed here, and certain things will always remain underplayed or unresolved. There’s only so much we see and, in a way, this reflects much of the journey of grief itself. We see flashes in others, fragments of truth spilling to the surface, but our journey remains our own however much we may wish that it doesn’t.

In trying to characterise this narrative, trying to recognise the texture and feel of it, I keep coming back to the notion of a scalpel. The Other Americans is slender, sharp and so precise in its reach. It cuts so specifically to the heart of the matter, and the truth unfolds so precisely, so slowly, and with such control. It is a powerful, impressive book.

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