Join Library Manager Katrina to discuss The Other Americans by Laila Lalami. 

From the Pulitzer Prize finalist, author of The Moor’s Account, comes a timely and powerful new novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant that is at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, all of it informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.

Late one spring night, Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant in California, is walking across a darkened intersection when he is killed by a speeding car. The repercussions of his death bring together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui’s daughter Nora, a jazz composer who returns to the small town in the Mojave she thought she’d left for good; his widow Maryam, who still pines after her life in the old country; Efrain, an undocumented witness whose fear of deportation prevents him from coming forward; Jeremy, a former classmate of Nora’s and a veteran of the Iraq war; Coleman, a detective who is slowly discovering her son’s secrets; Anderson, a neighbor trying to reconnect with his family; and the murdered man himself.

As the characters tell their stories, the invisible connections that tie them together–even while they remain deeply divided by race, religion, or class–are slowly revealed. When the mystery of what happened to Driss Guerraoui unfolds, a family’s secrets are exposed, a town’s hypocrisies are faced, and love, in its messy and unpredictable forms, is born.

This event is part of BCFL's Many Stories, One Bucks initiative, happening this fall. Many Stories, One Bucks is a free initiative focused on promoting literacy and inspiring meaningful dialogue with celebrated voices.  

Bucks County is a place teeming with stories; a bounty of varied voices with something to share. There is no better place to bring these stories together, and inspire engagement and dialogue, than the library.  

“We all have a story to tell.”