Each of these groups seeks access to the so-called American Dream but falls short due to some combination of their positionality and the unshakable residue of the events of September 11, 2001. The reader encounters veterans, Arab Americans, undocumented immigrants, and women in professional roles traditionally inhabited by men. As the title of the novel suggests, each member of her cast of characters inhabits some othered position on the margins of mainstream society. Lalami’s elegant prose also engages a variety of pertinent themes relevant to the contemporary condition of average Americans. This narrative style allows Lalami to underscore an invaluable human lesson: facts are often mediated by human perspective. Those views even include those of Driss, flashing back in time to capture his portion of the story before the accident. To achieve this feat in narration, Lalami named her chapters using the first name of the character whose views are related through the text’s first-person narration. With regard to structure, the book presents the reader with a variety of perspectives, jostling from one point of view to another. She seeks to unravel the mystery surrounding Driss’s death while simultaneously falling for a childhood friend the unusual combination renders the story part murder mystery and part romance. Driss’s daughter, Nora, is the novel’s protagonist and, arguably, the most likeable of its characters. Lalami’s prose picks up immediately following the accident. The plot revolves around the family’s deceased patriarch, Driss, who was killed in a hit-and-run car accident on his way home from work one evening. Whereas her previous novels featured stories that unfolded at least partially in Morocco, The Other Americans follows members of the Moroccan diaspora as they make a home in California. The Other Americans is Laila Lalami’s fourth full-length novel.
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