America Was Hard to Find, Kathleen Alcott
America Was Hard to Find, Kathleen Alcott
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America Was Hard to Find
A Novel

Author: Kathleen Alcott

Narrator: Tristan Morris

Unabridged: 12 hr 20 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ecco

Published: 05/14/2019


Synopsis

Ecuador, 1969: An American expatriate, Fay Fern, sits in the corner of a restaurant, she and her young son Wright turned away from the television where Vincent Kahn becomes the first man to walk on the moon.Years earlier, Fay and Vincent meet at a pilots’ bar in the Mojave Desert. Both seemed poised for reinvention—the married test pilot, Vincent, as an astronaut; the spurned child of privilege, Fay, as an activist. Their casual affair ends quickly, but its consequences linger.Though their lives split, their senses of purpose deepen in tandem, each becoming heroes to different sides of the political spectrum of the 1960s and 70s: Vincent an icon with no plan beyond the mission for which he has single-mindedly trained, Fay a leader of a violent leftist group whose anti-Vietnam actions make her one of the FBI’s most wanted. With her last public appearance, a demonstration that frames the Apollo program as a vehicle for distracting the American public from its country’s atrocities, Fay leaves Wright to contend with her legacy, his own growing apathy, and the misdeeds of both his mother and his country.An immense, vivid reimagining of the Cold War era, America Was Hard to Find traces the fallout of the cultural revolution that divided the country and explores the meaning of individual lives in times of upheaval. It also confirms Kathleen Alcott’s reputation as a fearless and vital voice in fiction.

About Kathleen Alcott

Born in 1988 in Northern California, Kathleen Alcott is the author of the novels Infinite Home and The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets. Her short stories and nonfiction have appeared in Zoetrope: All Story, ZYZZYVA, The Guardian, Tin House, The New York Times Magazine, the Bennington Review, and elsewhere. In 2017, she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award; her short fiction has been translated into Korean and Dutch. She divides her time between New York City, where she teaches fiction at Columbia University, and Vermont, where she serves as a 2018-2019 visiting professor at Bennington College. 


Reviews

Goodreads review by Melissa on August 30, 2019

This book! Oh my goodness. I will never understand why it did not get the publicity and marketing support it deserved. I will go back and read this author’s first and second books – her writing is that spectacular! About the book… How timely was this novel? It was published on May 14, and the anniver......more

Goodreads review by Lark on May 16, 2020

I heartily and sincerely recommend this novel for those who loved Fates and Furies, or who love the novels of Michael Ondaatje. While these authors don't superficially resemble one another much, to me they all seem to share a Proustian-like interest in paying rapt attention to every quotidian thing t......more

Goodreads review by Lyn on September 17, 2019

This was a very different novel. I really don’t know how to even begin to review it, except to say that the writing was beautiful and I came away from reading this with an extreme sense of sadness about our country. Maybe it’s just the state of America right now and my personal view of it.......more

Goodreads review by Drew on May 07, 2019

I love a good sprawling novel, one that swings for the fences -- perhaps even more so when it doesn't quite get there. There's something to be said for ambition, especially when so much of the book is so wonderful, and Alcott really makes it into orbit several times with this one. The first section......more

Goodreads review by Elaine on July 09, 2019

Lots of storylines, lots of locations, lots of perspectives. Lots of incomplete stories that collectively did not add up to something worth finishing. I rarely quit a book, especially book with alternate history, but this one I gave up on 2/3rds of the way through. There are so many good books out t......more