Her First American: A Novel
Historical fiction, Multi-cultural fiction, Romance
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Summary
Hailed by the New York Times as coming &“closer than anyone to writing The Great American Novel,&” Lore Segal stuns with this passionate love story of a refugee from Hitler&’s Europe and a witty, hard-drinking black intellectual 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, Her First American 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.