Publishers Weekly
George’s debut novel is a sentimental, lively, and sad family saga spanning four generations, from a couple’s flight out of Germany in 1904 to the hope that their great-grandchildren hold for the future. The story is told by James Martin Meisenheimer, the grandson of the original immigrant couple, the unusually tall Jette and the unabashedly rotund and red-bearded Frederick. This unlikely pair falls in love in Hanover and flees (a mother, not a war) to the U.S. with Jette pregnant. She gives birth to James’s father, Joseph, in Beatrice, Mo., a small town whose residents are capable of both kindness and hatred. Frederick opens a bar, then volunteers for the army and is killed in WWI. Jette turns the bar into a restaurant during Prohibition, a place that feeds the townspeople—with food, yes, but also music—for decades. When James calls his grandmother’s life “one long opera,” full of “love, great big waves of it, crashing ceaselessly against the rocks of life,” he is very much a mouthpiece for author George (and not unlike Styron’s Stingo), whose debut chronicles much of the 20th century through the eyes of one family. George, a British lawyer who has practiced law in London, Paris, and Columbia, Mo., where he now lives, evokes smalltown life lovingly, sometimes disturbingly, and examines the ties of family, the complications of home, and the moments of love and happiness that arrive no matter what. Agent: Emma Sweeney Agency. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
There’s plenty of storytelling charm on display here, with echoes of John Irving’s humane zaniness.”—The New York Times Book Review
“What does it mean to be a good citizen? A good member of a family? In A Good American, George considers both questions with humor, compassion, and grace. A beautifully written novel, laced with history and music.” —Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven
“This lush, epic tale of one family’s journey from immigrants to good Americans had me alternately laughing and crying, but always riveted. It’s a rich, rare treat of a book, and Alex George is a first-rate talent.” —Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author of Water for Elephants and Ape House
"As epic as an opera, as intimate as a lullaby, A Good American swept me through an entire century of triumph and tragedy with the wonderful Meisenheimer family...Alex George has created that rare and beautiful thing—a novel I finished and immediately wanted to start again."—Eleanor Brown, New York Times bestselling author of The Weird Sisters
“A sweeping, lush intergenerational novel about a family…learning to live in twentieth-century America.”—O, The Oprah Magazine
USA Today
Music is a hallmark of this novel, too — through the songs coming out of the radio, to the ballads and blues sung in the family restaurant, to the arias Frederick's son Joseph sings to woo his wife. Do you hear me, Broadway? This story would make a delightful musical. Readers also will be moved by this novelist's personal story. George was born in Great Britain but now lives in Missouri. Sometime soon, he'll be sworn in as a citizen of the United States of America.
Library Journal
This touching first novel by a British expat now living in Missouri traces four generations of one German immigrant family as they search for acceptance in America. (LJ 12/11)—Wilda Williams
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Library Journal - Audio
Protagonist James Meisenheimer, age 70, unfurls this gentle family saga beginning with his German grandparents. In 1904 Hamburg, Frederick and Jette fall in love, marry, and immigrate to America, settling in Beatrice, MS. Frederick becomes the bartender at a local tavern and eventually buys the place, which he and Jette turn into a restaurant when Prohibition comes along. Their daughter, Rosa, is the town schoolteacher, and son Robert eventually takes over the restaurant. Narrator James is the second of Robert's four sons. He and his brothers choose different careers but come together as a popular quartet, singing at weddings, funerals, and other local events. Memorable characters include Lomax, the jazz musician who introduces Creole flavors to Jette's German cooking, a best friend who is a giant, and a mad attorney who is a dwarf. A case of mistaken identity leads to a shotgun wedding and a new generation of Meisenheimers. VERDICT Gibson Frazier's narration conveys James's earnest desire to tell the family history accurately, without shame or boasting. A solid choice for popular collections. [Though the novel "loses steam once the focus (moves to the younger generation)...this memorable and well-written exploration of one family's search for acceptance in America should strongly appeal to readers who enjoy family sagas and historical fiction," read the review of the Amy Einhorn: Putnam hc, LJ 12/11.—Ed.]—Nann Blaine Hilyard, Zion-Benton P.L., IL
FEBRUARY 2012 - AudioFile
Set against the backdrop of twentieth-century America, A GOOD AMERICAN is a beautiful multigenerational saga of a German immigrant family that settles in Beatrice, Missouri, and becomes an integral part of the town. Narrator Gibson Frazier does a wonderful job bringing the Meisenheimers’ stories to life. Frazier doesn’t rely on a sonorous voice to beguile listeners. Instead, his strength is in storytelling. He has amazing timing and imbues the author’s words with genuine-sounding emotion. He’s a wonderful match for this family history, which evokes a century of joy and tragedy. J.L.K. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
An attorney originally from England, first-time novelist George offers a love song to his adopted state of Missouri in this multigenerational saga of the Meisenheimers from their arrival as German immigrants in 1904 up to the present. Frederick and already pregnant Jette marry on board the boat that brings them to New Orleans, where they immediately experience the kindness of strangers from a Polish Jew and an African-American cornet player. Large, easygoing Frederick immediately falls in love with America. Jette, who instigated their flight, finds herself homesick for the world she wanted to escape. They settle in Beatrice, a small Missouri farming town with many German immigrants, where their baby Joseph is born. A few years later comes his sister Rosa. Frederick opens a bar that thrives, but his marriage to Jette falters. When the United States enters World War I, Frederick enlists—George only glancingly touches the uncomfortable irony that Frederick is fighting against Germans when he is killed—so Jette takes over the bar. Prohibition arrives in 1920, and so does Lomax, the black cornet player from New Orleans. He helps Jette turn the bar into a restaurant offering a mix of German and Cajun specialties and becomes a surrogate father to Rosa and Joseph. But Lomax, who is doing a little bootlegging on the side, ends up murdered, his cornet stolen. Joseph runs the restaurant, now a diner, with Cora. Rosa becomes a spinster teacher. Cora and Joseph have four sons whom Joseph, who inherited Frederick's love of music, turns into a barbershop quartet. Second son James is the novel's narrator, and once he starts describing what he actually remembers, the tone changes. The melodramas of James and his brothers' lives—sexual escapades, religious crises, even the big secret ultimately revealed—are more complicated but less compelling than his parents' and grandparents'. At times the novel feels like a fictionalized historical catalogue, but there are lovely moments of humor and pathos that show real promise.
