Recommended American Lit

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Recommended American Lit
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Midwives by Chris Bohjalian

• Cut off from the hospital and rescue squad by an
  ice storm, midwife Sibyl Danforth makes the
  decision to perform a cesarean section on a
  patient she believes has died of a stroke during
  labor, but when her assistant tells police the
  mother was alive during the surgery, Sibyl and
  the entire community are drawn into a gripping
  trial.

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Getting Inby James Boylan

• Desperately trying to hide their low SAT scores,
  underdeveloped vocabularies, and shocking dearth
  of extracurricular activities, four high school
  seniors and their three chaperones take to the
  road in a Winnebago to attend interviews at nine
  prestigious New England colleges.

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Crazy in Alabamaby Mark Childress

• P.J. recalls the summer of 65, when his small
  Alabama town was filled with racial strife over
  the building of a new swimming pool.

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Shampoo Planetby Douglas Coupland

• In this story of two worlds colliding, those of
  1960s parents and their 1990s offspring, Tyler
  Johnson, raised in a hippie commune, is an
  ambitious twenty-year-old Reagan youth, living in
  a decaying northwest city and aspiring to a
  career with the corporation whose offices his
  mother once firebombed.

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Dangerous Lives of Altar Boysby Chris Fuhrman

• In the early 1970s, five boys get into a series
  of humorous adventures while attending a Catholic
  school.

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Roanokeby Sonia Levitin

• A fictionalized account of the disappearance of
  a group of early American settlers who moved to
  Roanoke Island and were never seen or heard from
  again.

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Postcards To Father Abrahamby Catherine Lewis

• Meghan deals with a series of tragedies in her
  life in the course of only two years her mother
  is killed in an accident, her brother is sent to
  Vietnam and returns a much different person, she
  is kicked out of school, and she gets cancer in
  her leg and must have it amputated. Despite these
  difficulties, Meghan maintains a sense of humor
  and is able to bounce back from her hardships by
  writing letters to her idol, Abraham Lincoln, and
  by maintaining friendships with her nurses.

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Bad Haircut Stories of the Seventiesby Tom
Perrotta

• A series of short stories follow Buddy through
  his growing up years, as he struggles to deal
  with family, sex, and race relations in a variety
  of funny situations.

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Slave Dayby Rob Thomas

• Eight individuals are affected very differently
  during the course of a single day at an Austin,
  Texas high school where students are sold as
  slaves to one another for a fund raiser.

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If You Come Softlyby Jacqueline Woodson

• Two teensa Jewish girl and a black boytry to
  maintain secrecy about their relationship to
  avoid criticism from the families and classmates.

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The Brothers Kby David James Duncan

• Story of the Chance family living in the Pacific
  Northwest in the early '60s embattled over the
  ideals represented by baseball and religion. The
  family is thrown into turmoil by the Vietnam War
  and when their father's baseball career is
  disrupted by a mill accident.

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A Prayer for Owen Meanyby John Irving

• Tells the story of Owen Meany who believes he is
  God's instrument and his friendship with John
  Wheelwright beginning at age eleven when Owen
  hits a foul ball that kills John's mother during
  a Little League game in 1953.

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The Bean Treesby Barbara Kingsolver

• Taylor, a poor Kentuckian, makes her way west
  with an abandoned baby girl and stops in Tucson.
  There she finds friends and discovers resources
  in apparently empty places.

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Icy Sparks by Gwyn Rubio

• Icy Sparks struggles to come-of-age in Kentucky
  while dealing with her Tourette's Syndrome. She
  meets an elderly woman, also an outcast in their
  small community, and the two form a bond that
  helps them transcend the mistreatment they
  receive at the hands of others in town.

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A Sudden Country by Karen Fisher

• Trader James MacLaren sets out to find his Nez
  Perce wife who has deserted him and encounters
  Lucy Mitchell and her family who convince
  MacLaren to lead them through the western
  wilderness.

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Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson

• Based on the true life story of the author's
  great-grandmother, the novel follows Hattie
  Brooks, age 16, as she travels alone to Eastern
  Montana to prove up a land claim left to her by
  her late uncle. Through the course of a year, she
  plows and seeds over 400 acres, builds a 480-post
  fence, raises chickens, learns to cook, sew,
  clean, and manage money, deals with prejudice
  towards her best friends, who are German
  immigrants, and accomplishes an entirely
  different set of achievements than most 16 year
  olds today face. It doesn't necessarily make her
  better or more admirable, but it definitely makes
  her different.

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The Memory of Runningby Ron McLarty

• Smithy Ide is 43, overweight, addicted to
  alcohol and cigarettes, and spends his days
  working at a toy factory where hes responsible
  for making sure the arms on a soldier doll are
  attached correctly. Hes unhappy with his life,
  but seems powerless to change it until a series
  of tragedies occur that lead to his
  transformation.
• Smithys parents are injured in a car crash and
  then die within days of each other, and soon
  afterward, he learns that his older sister,
  Bethany, has turned up dead in an L.A. morgue. In
  an impulse decision, Smithy picks up his old
  bicycle and begins pedaling across the country to
  identify and claim Bethanys body.
• As he travels across the country, Smithys
  encounters with a series of people who need his
  help, as well as his examination of the past and
  a resurrected relationship with an old neighbor
  cause him to reconsider himself and regain a self
  of worth and purpose.

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Lost and Foundby Carolyn Parkhurst

• In LOST AND FOUND, pairs compete in a worldwide
  scavenger hunt and tell their stories in first
  person.
• We follow a mother-daughter team as they
  struggle with the race and their own divisive
  secret a married couple whose relationship may
  be an elaborate masquerade two former television
  actors trying to make a comeback, and a bunch of
  others with equally compelling backstories. As
  the novel progresses, were led into each pairs
  past and watch as the competition forces them to
  confront what theyve left behind, and
  additionally, their own definitions of reality.
• As intriguing as the characters stories are,
  equally compelling is what Parkhurst reveals
  about reality televisionprimarily how much of it
  is planned, scripted, and carefully edited to
  create images and stories that will hook viewers,
  even at the expense of the truth. If youre a fan
  of Survivor, Big Brother, The Amazing Race, or
  any of the other shows that purport to show what
  happens to real people in extraordinary, unusual
  circumstances, youll enjoy LOST AND FOUND.

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The Miracle Life of Edgar Mintby Brady Udall

• Edgar Mints miracle life begins when, after
  being run over by a postal truck, he not only
  survives, but is relatively unharmed. His only
  apparent disability is his inability to write
  with is hands, but a typewriter is provided for
  him, and he begins his to type the story of his
  misfortunes and adventures.
• After emerging from a coma, Edgar is abandoned
  by his mother and grandmother, and lives for
  awhile at St. Divines hospital in Arizona, In
  the hospital, Edgar is befriended by an older
  man, Art Crozier, who has lost his wife and two
  daughters in a horrific auto accident and is need
  of someone to care for. It is also at St.
  Divines that Edgar encounters Barry Pinkley, a
  strange and somewhat sinister man who seems to
  want something from Edgar and lurks at the
  sidelines of his life, appearing occasionally to
  interfere.
• Edgar is later taken in by a distant relative
  who is the caretaker at Willie Sherman, a
  boarding school for Indian Children, and he
  endures years of bullying and persecution before
  finally escaping into a dysfunctional Mormon
  family, who adopts him and with whom he lives
  until their ultimate collapse. It is while he
  lives with the Mormons that Edgar begins to
  investigate his history. Edgar knows that the
  mailman who ran over him has lived for years
  believing that he killed Edgar, and he is
  determined to relieve the man of that burden.
  With the help of his friend Art Crozier, Edgar
  sets off to find the mailman and fulfill his own
  destiny.

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American Fujiby Sara Backer

• Gaby, a  young American woman living and working
  in Japan, finds herself selling "fantasy
  funerals" to wealthy Japanese families when she
  is fired from her university job. Her life is
  further complicated by mystery when she is called
  up to aid  Alex, an American man who has come to
  Japan to investigate the mysterious circumstances
  surrounding his only son's death. Reluctant to
  assist at first, Gaby soon becomes embroiled in
  Alex's quest to discover what really happen to
  his son and together, the two of them face the
  sometimes impenetrable Japanese culture and
  discover a shocking truth about the fate that can
  endanger foreigners.

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House of Sand and Fogby Andre Dubus, III

• An unlikely premise makes for one of the finest,
  most literary stories of suspense I have read. A
  young woman is mistakenly evicted from her home
  and her house is sold to an Iranian immigrant in
  an auction before she can prevent it. With the
  help of a renegade sheriff's deputy, she launches
  a battle to win back her home. But the new owner
  also feels he has every right--legal and
  moral--to own the house.  A page-turner that ends
  surprisingly. This book has caused more
  discussion among my friends than any other I have
  read recently. Find out why!

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The Secret Life of Beesby Sue Monk Kidd

• Lily has always felt responsible for her
  mother's death, but when an explosive argument
  with her abusive father indicates that she may,
  in fact, hhave killed, she decides to run away.
  She takes with her the family's black
  housekeeper, Rosaleen, who has just had a
  confrontation with three racists in town after
  attempting to register to vote, and is being held
  in the town jail. The two escape to Tiburon,
  South Carolina, after Lily finds what she
  considers to be a clue from her dead mother. In
  Tiburon, they find three African-American sisters
  living together and raising bees for honey. The
  women take Lily and Rosaleen in, and Lily soons
  learns much about beekeepping, friendship, and
  herself as she grows closer to the sister and is
  eventually able to confront the truth about
  herself and her mother and the past.

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A Theory of Relativityby Jacquelyn Mitchard

• When Gordon McKennas sister, Georgia, and her
  husband, Ray, die in a car crash, he is certain
  he will be able to take on the responsibility of
  raising her one year old daughter, Keefer, as he
  and his parents believe Georgia would have
  wished. The in-laws, howeverwealthy
  southernershave other plans, however, and a
  legal battle for the right to raise the girl
  ensues.
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• The in-lawsRays parentsshow no mercy in their
  quest to raise their sons daughter as their own.
  They know that Gordon was adopted, and therefore
  not technically a blood relative of Georgia and
  Keefers, and they use this information in their
  custody battle, citing language in the law that
  refers to blood relations.
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• Readers who enjoy legal thrillers and family
  dramas will be pleased by this taut, emotional
  combination of the two genres.

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The Man Who Ate the 747by Ben Sherwood

• J.J. Smith, a records-confirmer for the Book of
  Records, travels to Superior, Nebraska, where a
  man has reportedly been eating a 747 to prove his
  love for a woman. Wally Chubb has a specially
  constructed grinder that allows him to demolish
  small pieces of the airplane and consume them
  with his food.hopefully to catch the attention
  and win the love of Willa Wyatt, whom he has
  loved since they were both children.
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• J.J. persuades Wally to go public with his
  pursuit and hopefully win a spot in the Book of
  Records, but the ensuing publicity has some
  disastrous results, and J.J., who has long been
  interested only in records and numbers,
  unexpectedly finds love visiting this small
  community. A funny, light read about small town
  America and the power of love.

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The Reappearance of Sam Webberby Jonathan Scott
Fuqua

• In THE REAPPEARANCE OF SAM WEBBER by Jonathan
  Scott Fuqua, eleven-year-old Sam Webber and his
  mother move to a poorer section of Baltimore
  after being abandoned by Sam's father. The two
  struggle to make enough money to live, and Sam
  grieves his father. At school, he is bullied by
  larger kids and unhappy until he is befriended by
  the elderly black custodian, Greely, who protects
  and cares for Sam to make up for his own mistakes
  with his children decades earlier. Other adults
  buoy Sam--his mother, her friends Junie and
  Ditch, his mother's boyfriend, Howard, and the
  waitress, Rose, who has known Sam for years.  All
  of them help Sam see his own strengths and help
  his grow and experience happiness despite the
  absence of his father in this well-written,
  entertaining story.