An American Story by Mark Lages
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a book about normal people for normal people.

The fact that it is written in a fairly experimental way that eschews plot and even theme shouldn't dissuade anyone from reading this. It's vignettes upon vignettes, illustrating America and American life not as Dos Pasos would do it, but as if a normal, average man would portray it from within the heart of America.

This includes modernish issues, from the nature of war or religion or sobriety or cheating or the nature of work, itself, but aside from the sobriety bits, the center of the text never quite butts up against the vital reality of them EXCEPT when it comes to addiction.

All in all, it's a book about a life, told in mini-theme snippets, that does a lot of light moralizing. It's not bad, but perhaps it wasn't quite for me. Mileage for others might vary.

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