3.5
Her First American
ByPublisher Description
For Ilka Weissnix, everything is new. Having recently arrived in the United States, she is determined to escape the immigrant communities of New York and boards a train headed west to discover "the real America." She finds Carter Bayoux "sitting on a stool in a bar in the desert, across from the railroad."
Older, portly, experienced, and black, Carter is magnetic. To Ilka, he exemplifies the values and cultures of a changing America. In order to understand her new country and her new love, Ilka throws herself into Carter's dizzying world, nurses him through his bouts of depression and his alcoholism, and becomes fascinated by stories of his amorous past. But Carter's ghosts are ever present, and soon Ilka finds herself torn between saving him and saving her own future.
With a foreword by Stanley Crouch,
is the poignant story of an immigrant experience in a country of endless possibilities and of a rich and breathtaking love that is doomed from the start.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesHer First American Reviews
3.5
Change and growDiverse representationMemorableMinor characters stand outMorally ambiguousMultilayeredStrong relationshipsAddictiveFast-pacedSatisfying conclusionAtmosphericEvocative imageryHistoricalImmersive world-buildingSetting fits the storyDescriptiveTakes getting used toRacismReligious intoleranceSubstance abuseWar violence
“A young European Jewish woman moves to New York City on her own and becomes the lover of a distinguished older black man. First published in 1985, a unique historical fiction tale of the melting pot of people and personalities in post-WWII NYC.”
About Lore Segal
Lore Segal was born in Vienna in 1928, and was educated at the University of London. A finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Segal has won a Guggenheim Fellowship, two PEN/O. Henry Awards, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award, and a fellowship at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A recognized author of children’s books, Segal has also written for the
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, among others. She lives in New York City.
Other books by Lore Segal
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