Watermark Books and Cafe

Meet the lively, spirited Meisenheimers, stars of the beguiling new novel “A Good American” by Alex George. They would be welcome anywhere, but in 1904 Frederick and Jette, a newly married and unlikely pair have landed in Beatrice, MO - up the Mississippi from New Orleans after a long journey across the Atlantic from their native Germany.  

Frederick opens a bar that grounds the story through its many transformations due to changing moral standards and the needs of the community. The bar becomes a restaurant during prohibition, and changes several more times through the years.    

The Meisenheimer’s colorful journey through the 20th century will include, but not be limited to: PG Wodehouse, a good game of chess, the seductive power of music, a midget and a giant, a barbershop quartet, the terror of war, the joy of early romance, the particular pain of the middle child, a lonely unpublished novelist, a pugilist and his financier.  

“The Good American” is a quixotic immigration saga spanning four generations and wrapped in exquisite finery, from the opening promise of everlasting music, to the closing declaration that one’s own ordinary life is often anything but ordinary.  

Review by Sarah Bagby

A Good American (Hardcover)

By Alex George

$25.95

ISBN-13: 9780399157592
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, 2/2012

Other Editions of this Title

---