The UnAmericans: Stories

This is an author that those who like literature that is authentically artistic will look forward to reading more of. I happen to be very fond of Jewish stories. So this has been a delightful read although not all of the eight stories reflect delightfulness. The stories, some in first person and some a combination of first and second and some in third, are indeed "un"American since they all involve characters who either came to the United States or who have very deep roots elsewhere. My domestic partner's first-generation American Jewish parents had strong communist leanings and were devoted to all that FDR accomplished while my long-standing American protestant parents (my mother traced her lineage back to William Bradford of The Mayflower fame) detested communists and all things FDR. My partner's parents were poor whereas mine rose rapidly into the middle class in the 50s. And in "Duck and Cover," the reader meets some truly wonderful characters, a story told by a now-adult-but-then-teenage Jewish girl--all things are Jewish in these stories--whose mother died years ago and whose father is completely into "the Party." The title is in reference to what my partner and I laugh about today, the times when we were to "duck and cover"--duck under our desks to cover ourselves--in preparation for the inevitable end because of "the commies" and their bombs (not that back then discussions centered around the country that actually used those bombs first!). The story, as is true of all these stories, is told in such an authentic voice. "The Quiet Man" is another favorite--essentially they all fall under that category. Told in first person by a Prague-born father who with his young wife and baby daughter came to this country where he taught at a college in Vermont. (I lived most of my life in Vermont, much of it in Middlebury where Middlebury College is located--and taught there.) But the marriage ended with his wife's move to New York City where she had custody of their daughter, now herself an adult who has just recently published her first play. The narrator had a downward professional projector--he had to settle for adjunct teaching--and has ended up living in a college town in Maine. (My former wife moved to a college town in Maine, and I have an adult daughter who is a writer. And I just ended teaching as an adjunct English "professor"-not who loved this sentence from the story: "But the last thing I wanted to do was read another student essay.") The daughter goes to visit him, and he realizes that they don't know how to relate to each other, something I have experienced with one of my daughters. So this story in particular felt so real to me. There are nine stories. "My Grandmother Tells Me This Story" is one that I would highly recommend to anyone who wants to study a very unique presentation of point of view since it is an interesting combination of first person and second--and I love how many writers today write in second person. The thirteen-year-old Jewish grandmother has been telling her story again and again over the decades. And in this story the reader experiences the horrors of what happened to her and the grandfather, what Jewish youth were forced to do in war-torn Europe in attempts to survive, but in this telling of the story it is also the grandchild's perspective of what happened, one that demonstrates both the poignancy of the narrator's admiration of her grandparents and what they suffered but also how it has impacted all future generations. I experience this often with my partner who retells his Jewish roots again and again because it is his only way of dealing with the pain. "The Old World" is one of her stories in this collection that has some very humorous lines, a good one to begin with which you will do if you go in order. However, the next story, "Minor Heroics," set in Israel, depicts the horrors of what life can be like in the middle of war. Designated as 5 under 35 by the National Book Foundation--meaning she's under 35 years old--might suggest a lack of enough life experiences to write with much wisdom. Well, that's certainly not true for these stories which demonstrates a profound understanding of a wide variety of people. "...but Talia had known her parents for too long to have any idea what they actually looked like now." She's currently living with them given her reduced status as a journalist. So a reader might think that untrue. In this story, "A Difficult Phase," the reader becomes aware that what the first-person narrator really means is this: we get used to elder faces and find ourselves not quite sure what those people now look like. And since I'm one of them, I understand exactly what this is about. This story, like all the others, has a remarkable cast of characters--and it's sort of a love story. In the stories set in Israel there's the overlay of the military draft, and although the author doesn't tip her hand politically in any of these stories, there exists the existential threat for the lives of those living there. I predict that Molly Antopol will be one of America's newest great literary writers.But! There is one factual error on page 245. There are no trains that run from the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont to Brattleboro. Oops!

There was a time when I didn't read short stories, because I said I didn't like getting emotionally invested in characters and plot only to have to move on a short while later. It was a foolish sentiment, in retrospect, one which I abandoned about 15 years ago when I realized how rich the short story landscape truly was, filled with talented authors creating stories with the power of full-length novels, stories whose characters intrigued me and made me long to know more about what happened to them when the stories ended.Molly Antopol's new collection, The UnAmericans, is one of the reasons I'm glad I read short stories. Every one of the eight stories in this collection packed a quiet power, richly drawn characters, and tremendously compelling explorations of human emotion in typical and unusual situations.The characters in Antopol's stories are Jewish people spanning the 1950s through the present. Whether it's the former Czech dissident-turned-New England professor in "The Quietest Man," who tries to find out from his estranged daughter what her new play will say about their strained relationship; the restless Israeli journalist desperate to once again leave her country in search of work, but can't seem to get herself disentangled from a relationship with a widower and his teenage daughter, in "A Difficult Phase"; the actor recently released from prison after refusing to name names during the McCarthy era in "The Unknown Soldier," who has reinvented himself to get roles but can't seem to even act the part of good father to his young son; the young Israeli soldier in "Minor Heroics," who finds his loyalty to his family tested after an accident; or the woman recounting her exploits in the Yiddish Underground during World War II in "My Grandmother Tells Me This Story," these are seemingly ordinary people facing challenges that test their strength and their heart.After I finished every one of these stories, I simply thought to myself, "That was so good!" Antopol's use of language and imagery, as well as the emotional richness with which she imbues her characters, really makes this a tremendously strong collection. It doesn't matter that I couldn't identify with the situations most of these people found themselves in; I just wanted to keep reading about them. And usually when I read, I'm struck by a sentence or two, something I like to use in my reviews, but there were so many amazing sentences in these stories it became an exercise of excess.I've always felt that a good short story keeps you thinking about the characters after it has ended, and in many cases, you'd be willing to read more about them. I felt that way about nearly every story in The UnAmericans. I'm so glad I found this collection, and look forward to seeing what's next in Molly Antopol's career. I know we'll be hearing from her again soon.

Beautifully written. Unusual perspective on immigrants in America. Poignant, haunting characterisation. I would highly recommend.

I would so much recommend it to evey one! Great great great book! Very intelligent...

This was a strong and well-written collection of short stories with well-chosen themes. However it was let down by some passages which just weren't very credible. For example, the rather cold and over-educated 'row' between a married couple right at the end just isn't believable, nor is the strange and sudden attachment of a child who has lost her mother to her father's one-night stand. These rather let the book down. I also found the male characters a little too sympathetic, and whilst the female characters tended to be stronger and more believable the men in it were always hapless victims.

An unexpected great read. I would give 5 stars but the last few stories seemed thrown in there. Also, I don't really understand the title.