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P.S.

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Lula, a twenty-six-year-old Albanian woman living surreptitiously in New York City on an expiring tourist visa, hopes to make a better life for herself in America. When she lands a job caring for a rebellious high schooler in wealthy, suburban New Jersey, it seems that the American dream may finally be within reach. But things take a sinister turn when Lula's Albanian "brothers" show up in a black SUV to remind her that all Albanians are family—and that Lula's family has a very serious favor to ask.

Set in the aftermath of 9/11, My New American Life offers a biting and darkly humorous portrait of an era when dreams and ideals began to give way to cynicism, fear, and still-resonating questions about what it means to be an American.

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“My New American Life is—happily—vintage Prose: cheerfully pessimistic, smart, funny, with characters unnervingly spot-on in their stages of outrage, denial, malaise or disillusionment.”

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“A fast-moving novel . . . [that] brings together cultural satire, mystery, a psychosexual thriller, and political outrage. . . . Exceptionally entertaining, fun to read in its sentences, incidents, scenes.”

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“A superb novel . . . a wickedly entertaining read. . . . Prose is on top of her game . . . the fluidity of the prose surpassing, I think, her work in Blue Angel.”

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“A tangy mixture of satire and sentiment. . . . Ms. Prose uses her heroine’s outside status to make a lot of funny . . . observations about the cosseted life of well-to-do Americans.”

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“An illuminating and ultimately upbeat look at America’s immigrant situation that all fiction readers will enjoy.”

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“Fun and funny,...a satire of immigration and its discontents...”

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“In My New American Life, Francine Prose cracks open that old chestnut about the immigrant reinvention experience and injects, yes, new life into it.”

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“Nothing is beyond the artistic reach of Francine Prose”

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“Prose is dazzling in her sixteenth book of spiky fiction, a fast-flowing, bittersweet, brilliantly satirical immigrant story that subtly embodies the cultural complexity and political horrors of the Balkans and Bush-Cheney America.”

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“Prose is in her sweet spot as a nimble chronicler of contemporary culture.”

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“Prose spins the many straws of American culture into a golden tale, shimmering with hilarious, if blistering, satire.”

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“Prose succeeds by transforming anxiety into compassion—it’s a little lever that gets tripped when we truly imagine what another person feels.”

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“Prose’s characters in MY NEW AMERICAN LIFE are complex and brilliantly drawn (culturally distinct but without the usual clichés).”

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“Prose’s real aim is to characterize and caricature modern American life, mostly in a gentle way that will leave readers smarter than they were before...”

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“Prose . . . is, as always, sharply intelligent.”

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“She’s a perfect observer of American life in the opening decade of the 21st century. . . . Wry . . . witty . . . a book that brims with smart surprises.”

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“There has been a lot written about th“Francine Prose is a world-classsatirist who’s also a world-class storyteller.”—Russell Banks
 
Francine Prose captures contemporary America at itsmost hilarious and dreadful in My New American Life, a darkly humorousnovel of mismatched aspirations, Albanian gangsters, and the ever-elusiveAmerican dream. Following her New York Times bestselling novels BlueAngel and A Changed Man, Prose delivers the darkly humorous storyof Lula, a twenty-something Albanian immigrant trying to find stability andcomfort in New York City in the charged aftermath of 9/11. Set at the frontlines of a cultural war between idealism and cynicism, inalienable rights andimplacable Homeland Security measures, My New American Life is a movingand sardonic journey alongside a cast of characters exploring what it means tobe American.