Publisher Description
Finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction Finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Fiction Winner of the Arab American Book Award in Fiction Named a Best Book of the Year by Time, the Washington Post, BookPage, NPR, the Guardian, Variety, New York Public Library, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Dallas Morning News, and Kirkus Reviews. From the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Moor’s Account, here is a timely and powerful novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant—at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture. Late one spring night, Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant living in California, is walking across a darkened intersection when he is killed by a speeding car. The repercussions of his death bring together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui’s daughter Nora, a jazz composer who returns to the small town in the Mojave she thought she'd left for good; his widow, Maryam, who still pines after her life in the old country; Efraín, an undocumented witness whose fear of deportation prevents him from coming forward; Jeremy, an old friend of Nora's and an Iraq War veteran; Coleman, a detective who is slowly discovering her son's secrets; Anderson, a neighbor trying to reconnect with his family; and the murdered man himself. As the characters—deeply divided by race, religion, and class—tell their stories, connections among them emerge, even as Driss’s family confronts its secrets, a town faces its hypocrisies, and love, messy and unpredictable, is born.
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“Mozhan Marno as Nora and Ozzie Rodriguez as Efrain stand out among this first-rate group of narrators, each capturing the raw emotion of their character. A highly relevant and entertaining listen. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
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AudioFile
About Laila Lalami
Laila Lalami is the author of several books, including The Moor’s Account, which won the American Book Award, the Arab-American Book Award, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. The Moor’s Account was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and included on several best-books-of-the-year lists, including the Wall Street Journal, Kirkus Reviews, and NPR. Her latest novel, The Other Americans, was published in March 2019. She is the recipient of fellowships from the British Council and the Fulbright and Guggenheim foundations, and is a professor of creative writing at the University of California at Riverside.
About the Narrators
Mark Bramhall has won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration, more than thirty AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has repeatedly been named by AudioFile magazine and Publishers Weekly among their “Best Voices of the Year.” He is also an award-winning actor whose acting credits include off-Broadway, regional, and many Los Angeles venues as well as television, animation, and feature films. He has taught and directed at the American Academy of Dramatic Art.
Meera Simhan
is a film and stage actress who was born in England and raised in San Diego.
Her first lead film role was as Linda Jones in Date Movie in 2006. Since then she has appeared in a number of
films and television shows, including Iron
Man, Law & Order, The Young and the Restless, and The Mentalist.
Ozzie Rodriguez is a narrator, voice artist, and actor of film, television, and the stage, performing in many independent features, such as My Life: Untitled, Escape from South LA, and his co-produced, self-written project Elevator.
Susan Nezami is an audiobook narrator whose readings include The Idealist by Nina Munk, among others.
Iva-Marie Palmer is the author of The Summers and The End of the World as We Know It. She grew up in Chicago’s south suburbs and now lives in Los Angeles with her husband.
Adenrele Ojo is an actress, dancer, and audiobook narrator, winner of over a dozen Earphones Awards and the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2018. She made her on-screen debut in My Little Girl, starring Jennifer Lopez, and has since starred in several other films. She has also performed extensively with the Philadelphia Dance Company. As the daughter of John E. Allen, Jr., founder and artistic director of Freedom Theatre, the oldest African American theater in Pennsylvania, is no stranger to the stage. In 2010 she performed in the Fountain Theatre’s production of The Ballad of Emmett Till, which won the 2010 LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for Best Ensemble. Other plays include August Wilson’s Jitney and Freedom Theatre’s own Black Nativity, where she played Mary.
Mozhan Marnò is an Iranian American film and television actress, most notably appearing in Charlie Wilson’s War and Bones. Her audiobook narrations have won several AudioFile Earphones Awards.
P. J. Ochlan is an Audie Award–winning, multiple Earphones Award–winning, and Voice Arts Award–nominated narrator of hundreds of audiobooks. His acting career spans more than thirty years and has also included Broadway, the NY Shakespeare Festival under Joseph Papp, critically acclaimed feature films, and television series regular roles.
R. F. Daley is an actor, voice-over artist, and audiobook narrator. His television credits include Curb Your Enthusiasm, Bones, Dexter, The Office, Arrested Development, Boston Public, and Spin City, among many others. He has narrated numerous audiobooks by L. Ron Hubbard and was the voice of the military adviser in the video game Civilization V.