A Good American is my new gold standard for family sagas.  All family stories now have to live up to this book… and that’s going to be a tall order.

This is the story of the Meisenheimer family and their life in America.  A Good American begins not in America, but in Hanover, Germany in the early days of the 20th century, where Frederick Meisenheimer is secretly in love with a young woman, Jette.  Frederick wins Jette’s heart by hiding in the bushes as she goes about her weekly Sunday stroll in the park, serenading her with his clear tenor.  But unfortunately, as easy as it was for Frederick to win Jette’s love, it’s just that difficult – no, impossible – to get her disapproving family on board.  It’s not long before Jette is pregnant, and the young couple steals away to a new life in the still young United States.  When they can’t get a boat to New York, they head for New Orleans instead (what’s the difference?  they’re both New, as Jette points out) and travel north to Missouri.  Their journey ends abruptly in the small town of Beatrice, Missouri, where Jette goes into labor, and their family decamps in Beatrice for the long haul.  Frederick and Jette make their lives together in Missouri as Frederick tries to be what a helpful stranger encouraged him to be: a good American.  As their progeny grow up, America grows up with them.  There are friends, laughter, tragedy, frustration, love, and all the ties that bind a family together across the generations – including secrets, the biggest of which the book’s narrator, Frederick and Jette’s grandson James, finally unearths in a surprising twist.

I can’t say enough good things about A Good American.  It’s a book that made me well up and laugh in the same chapter – sometimes on the same page.  I was torn between wanting to read slowly and savor the lovely, atmospheric writing, and to feverishly turn pages so I would finally know everything that happened to the family.  Now that I’m done, I’m sorry it’s over.  In fact, that’s my only complaint: this book could have been twice as long and it still wouldn’t have been long enough for me.  I could have read it forever.  Five stars, and applause.

Get the book!  A Good American, by Alex George (not an affiliate link)

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