Ethan Canin’s America, America: A Novel (New York : Random House [2008] 460 p. in the uncorrected proof edition) is the story of young Corey Sifter, from Saline, a small town in western New York south of Buffalo, who is a laborer on Aberdeen West, the estate of one Liam Metarey, of Scots-Irish descent, whose father, Eoghan, in the late nineteenth century, grew the family’s quarrying and lumbering business in the region and became one of the great Capitalists, along with John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie in America. Corey’s father, a World War II Navy veteran, also worked as a maintenance foreman at Aberdeen West, and brought Corey along on his jobs as an assistant teaching him details of pipe fitting and the work ethic of the middle class in America. While at Aberdeen West one summer in the early 1970s, Corey meets the Metarey daughters, Christian and Clara, and Mrs. Metarey, and ends up working at Aberdeen West in support of Senator Henry Bonwiller, Senator from New York and friend of Metarey, at a social gathering designed to announce Senator Bonwiller’s candidacy for the 1972 Presidential campaign against incumbent Richard M. Nixon.

From this setting, the author weaves a political web of intrigue that reveals Bonwiller’ involvement with a young woman who died in an automobile accident and the attempt at concealment. Also, we watch the romantic attractions grow between Corey and first Christian, and later on when Corey is at university, with Clara, whom he marries, and settles into a career as a newspaper editor. We learn also, that Andrew, brother to Clara and Christian, is a Soldier, first at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in a relatively safe job, but died in Vietnam in 1972 the result of a helicopter accident while on a medical rescue mission. At the end of his story, after witnessing the venality of politics and big business in America, Corey is most happy when he spends a few hours a week with his father walking the local hills where both have spent their lives.

America, America was published in spring 2008 with the most recent Presidential campaign in full swing. The political reflections of Corey Sifter (pp. 297-298) are poignant and pertinent:

“One of the hallmarks of our politics now is that we tend to elect those who can campaign over those who can lead; it’s an obvious point but because of my history I’ve spent a fair amount of time pondering what it might have meant for Henry Bonwiller and Liam Metarey. For a man on the rise in politics, power first comes through character – that combination of station and forcefulness that produces not just intimidation, which is power’s crudest form, but flattery, too, which is one of its more refined [attributes]. (The ‘uncorrected proof’ edition with which I am working, omits a necessary word after ‘refined’.) After that, power begins to grow from its own essence, rising no longer exclusively from the man but from the office itself. And this is where some balance must be found between its attainment and its allotment, between the unquenchable desire in any politician to rise, and the often humbling requirement that one’s station must now be used to some benefit. And here, of course, is where corruption begins; for power contains an irresistible urge to further itself: there is always the next race. But when finally there isn’t any more, when at last there is not more ambition to quell, no more inchoate striving to follow as a guidestar [sic], then a politician must make a transformation that he may have no more ability to make that he has to grow wings and fly. He must change his personal ambition into ambition for his country. [. . .]”

Ethan Canin is faculty member of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a physician. His other works include: Emperor of the Air, Blue River, The Palace Thief, For Kings and Planets, and Carry Me Across the Water. ( )

America America is a quietly stunning book about politics, wealth, family, love and loyalty. It bears comparison with The Great Gatsby and An American Tragedy, but it is its own book and I would not be surprised to see it
enter the canon as a modern American classic.

It is narrated by Corey Sifter, an upstate New York newspaper publisher looking back at his past association with the wealthy Metarey family. The
teenage son of a plumber, Corey is hired by the Metareys as a groundskeeper/handyman, and becomes a sort of protege to patriarch Liam Metarey. Through them he becomes involved with the presidential campaign of
Henry Bonwiller, a liberal antiwar senator whose campaign is derailed by accusations of the coverup of a fatal accident.

Corey is a hard working, studious, almost unbearably decent boy who is often mystified by the scenes of political and emotional drama unfolding before him. As he begins a flirtation with one of the Metarey daughters,
and accepts Mr. Metarey's offer to pay tuition to a prestigious prep school, he feels conflicting loyalties between his family and class origins and the heady new world of power and wealth of which he is mostly a passive
and naive observer.

There is drama, suspense and tragedy in this book, and it is a page-turner, if you can imagine a wistful, sad, elegiac page-turner. It is a book that longs for decency and for the old-fashioned "American" virtues of hard
work, common sense, practical knowledge and unselfish love. It is a book that fights like hell against cynicism, and in the face of the political treachery portrayed, it seems a quixotic fight indeed. ( )

Why is it that author after author, even in this decadent age, keeps trying to write the Great American Novel? It's clear that's what Canin was after with this story of class differences and thinly-veiled (or not) political allusions. The most I'm prepared to say is that it's a noble effort, but one doomed to failure, even for a writer with Canin's verve and style. In the end, I believe that I prefer his stories to his novels. ( )

Well, it looks like I am in the minority when I say that I thought the book was average. I did get swept into the story, and I liked how Canin moves from the past to the present and back again so fluidly. However, there were a number of things that bothered me. The main character seemed to become more concerned with the Metarey's than his own family, which was a huge put-off for me. Additionally, there are a number of things that are never fully explained, and while some readers appear to enjoy this bit of mystery, I would have liked more clarification at times. Additionally, there were a number of things that the author touched on only briefly (Anodyne Energy, anyone?) that suddenly showed up near the end of the story and had a strong impact on the plot. It seems that Canin wouldn't need to wait until the end of his 500 page novel to put in the part that will eventually be the senator's downfall. ( )

Ethan Canin’s novel, America America, contains whispers of earlier authors’ works, including All the King’s Men and Brideshead Revisited. The flawed but gifted politician reminds me of Warren’s classic, while the awestruck class inferior reminds me of Waugh’s. Yet Canin combines these familiar archetypes in a well-wrought story that satisfies as it stretches across a broad canvas.

This is a smart story that doesn’t beat the reader over the head with its intelligence. Not every gap is filled; not every step is made plain. This leaves the reader to imagine for herself whether Chistian shared some mood disorder with her father, Liam. The reader can only imagine how Clara moved from predominantly feared to predominantly loved. Yet both conclusions seem reasonable across the scope of the novel.

I put down the novel with questions, though I don’t count that as a negative. Uncertainty, or more particularly doubt, is what we’re assured with the Bacon quote. Canin delivers on the promise. Why Corey, plucked from ordinary? At the start, he seems worthy enough as the hard-working kid taking care not to damage the roots. Maybe by the end it’s not the hard-working trait that qualifies him so much as his ability to not damage the roots of the Metahey family and his flame-tending that has allowed them to grow. ( )