Harvard Square A Novel

by Aciman, André

• ISBN13: 9780393088601
• ISBN10: 039308860X
• Edition: 00
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-04-08
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

"If you like brave, acute, elated, naked, brutal, tender, humane, and beautiful prose, then you've come to the right place."-Nicole Krauss Cambridge, 1977: A Harvard graduate student, a Jew from Egypt, is preparing to become the assimilated American professor he longs to be. But when he bonds with a brash, charismatic Arab cab driver nicknamed Kalashnikov, he begins to neglect his studies. Together they carouse the bars and cafés of Cambridge, seduce strangers, ridicule "jumbo-ersatz" America, and skinny-dip in Walden Pond. As final exams approach and the cab driver is threatened with deportation, the grad student faces the decision of his life: whether to cling to his dream of New World assimilation or ditch it all to defend his Old World friend. Sexually charged and enormously moving, this is a deeply American novel of identity and ideals in conflict. It is the book that will seal André Aciman's reputation as one of the finest writers of our time.