The UnAmericans

Stories

By: Molly Antopol

Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck

The UnAmericans, a stunning exploration of characters shaped by the forces of history, is the debut work of fiction by Molly Antopol, a 2013 National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" Honoree.

An absentee father, a former dissident from communist-era Prague, needles his adult daughter for details about her newly commissioned play when he fears it will cast him in an unflattering light. An actor, imprisoned during the Red Scare for playing up his communist leanings to get a part with a leftist film director, is shamed by his act when he reunites with his precocious young son. An Israeli soldier, forced to defend a settlement filled with American religious families, still pines for a chance to discover the United States for himself. A young Israeli journalist, left unemployed after America’s most recent economic crash, questions her life path when she begins dating a middle-aged widower still in mourning for his wife. And in the book’s final story, a tour de force spanning three continents and three generations of women, a young American and her Israeli husband are forced to reconsider their marriage after the death of her dissident art-collecting grandmother.

Again and again, Molly Antopol’s deeply sympathetic characters struggle for footing in an uncertain world, hounded by forces beyond their control. Their voices are intimate and powerful and they resonate with searing beauty. Antopol is a superb young talent, and The UnAmericans will long be remembered for its wit, humanity, and heart.

• Winner of the 2015 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award

©2014 Jennifer Van Dyck (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Every story is a punch in the gut

This is a rare collection. Antopol has this way of putting into focus this specific kind of loneliness of being unmoored, in the way we can be through the generations, in a sort of historical way, in a way that is difficult to articulate. These stories are poetry in their essence. As quintessentially Jewish as anything I’ve read!

All the lonely people, where do they all belong?

"The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.” The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

This quote was brought to mind by the final steamroller of a story, "Retrospective," in this wonderful collection of thought-provoking stories. I appreciated all but one of the 7 other stories, which revolve mostly around Jews in World War II Europe, communists and the red scare during the McCarthy era, and Israel. I cannot begin to discuss all of the stories here, so I'll just hit some of my high points.

While the stories involve so many relationships and emotions, the common thread seemed to be the character’s revelation of self through loneliness, including: an elderly widower, remarried late and wanting to belong to an old world culture (or a religion); an Israeli soldier’s need for his amputee brother’s love and to be an important part of his small family contrasted with his selfish feelings for the bro’s girl and his guilt from what is on track to be much more; loneliness borne of fear and resentment that comes from being a 13-year-old Jewish girl escaping through sewers and living hungry and in hiding during the coldest winter ever; isolation from a daughter and loss of status in the world; a daughter’s loneliness from normal society outside the narrow world of her father, a communist party leader in the U.S. during the Eisenhower years, and her eagerness to do anything to escape; and, a man’s loneliness from the loss of his relationship with his wife and 10-year-old son caused by his selfishness and ego.

In “Retrospective,” which I consider the best short story I’ve read in many years, Ms. Antopol quilts the mind with a vivid landscape over which the reader thinks she/he knows the way. [[Seen a lot of this before, know where we’re headed. Turbulence, but set her on cruise control; ahh ..., four more to go, take foot off gas and coast; two more, put right foot easily on brake, and ..... WHAM!]]

And yet, this was no contrived shock ending. I wish I could do justice to the author's work by adequately describing my jumbled and racing thought and how the final scene was so well-laid that it rendered my heart heavy and left me feeling so alone that my only remedy seemed to be my eternal consciousness and my faith. I recovered, but that is one that stays around in your head for a while.

I plan to purchase the print version because I’d like to read a few of these again and mine them for the gold I know is there.

Ms. Van Dyck’s talented narration enhanced these stories as an experience–in sound as well as in sight and mind.

I highly recommend this book.

I tried, I really did.

Would you try another book from Molly Antopol and/or Jennifer Van Dyck?

Very unlikely. I came away unsatisfied and somewhat disappointed.

What could Molly Antopol have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Provided more synthesis between the characters' actions and their personalities. I believe she felt it was obvious as she wove her tales but the idiosyncrasies and contradictory natures of the characters often induced them to say and do things that felt odd and disjointed. Also, each ending seemed premature and raw - a bit too clever, graduate school English Lit for my tastes.

Which scene was your favorite?

The conversation in the tree at the kibbutz.

Did The UnAmericans inspire you to do anything?

Yes. Read more than three or four reviews before I use a credit on a book.

Any additional comments?

I couldn't shake the feeling that the author was attempting a dynastic style even though the stories are not connected. Had she succeeded this book could have been as great as Salinger's Glass family stories. Oh well...

weak

the stories were incomplete and led to wrongheaded conclusions. there was the possibility of a wonderful outcome in every story, but that's not where they were heading before they left the reader hanging.

Sensational stories! Brilliant new author.

Molly Antopol is a wonderful first-time author with a clarity of expression and insight into human behavior that is astonishing. Time and again I was surprised by the unusual degree of self-awareness shown by her characters. This collection of stories mostly take place between about 1943-1953, long before she was born. Their locale varies from San Francisco to Jerusalem to Belarus. Although her themes surround WWII and its aftermath, especially for Jews, the stories encompass universal issues. The title refers obliquely to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, whose activities in the late 1940's resulted in the creation of Hollywood blacklists of professionals in the movie industry and the jailing of 10 men. One of her stories deals directly with the personal consequences of this tragedy.

Jennifer van Dyck's reading is good, but she makes no attempt to speak in character or to use different voices. It took me a little while to get used to men speaking in a female voice, and her range of emotion is limited. The strength of the writing comes through anyway. For those of you expecting more from a narrator, I encourage you to read the book instead since the narration adds little.

Finishing the book, I wanted to know more about this author. She wrote an interesting commentary on her namesake village, Antopol, in the New Yorker's Page-Turner blog (Jan. 29, 2014). There are interviews with her in "The Times of Israel" (Feb. 15, 2014) and The Rumpus (Feb. 17, 2014). She divides her time between San Francisco and Israel, when she isn't traveling elsewhere. I look forward to reading her first full-length novel.

The most inappropriate narration ever

I have never heard a more inappropriate narration, and I have listened to well over 100 audio books. All of the characters were Jewish and some of the stories were set in Israel. The narrator did not pronounce one name, location, city or expression correctly. I felt as if she had absolutely no connection to the stories she was narrating. In addition, I found her voice very irritating and also not connected emotionally to the stories .

This is unfortunate as the stories were all interesting and left me thinking of the characters long after the story ended. I recommend reading this book.

Isn't there more oversight as how the narrators narrate the story and correct mispronunciations? It was so irritating!

Short Story Collection

This was an interesting collection of short stories with well developed characters. I enjoyed that they stories and characters were varied; although I liked some more than others, there were none in the collection that I didn't like. The narration was solid and added to the enjoyment of the book.

Narrator mispronounces Hebrew

A powerful and auspicious first book. Unfortunately audible insists on hiring narrators to read books with foreign vocabulary who have no idea how to correctly pronounce the foreign words. Of the many Hebrew words and phrases that appear in this English language audiobook the narrator did not correctly pronounce even one. Books with a significant amount of foreign words should be read by bilingual narrators who can pronounce the foreign words correctly. That said, don't let this shortcoming prevent you from listening to this fine book.

Like a Writing workshop

Stories did not go far but writing skills and empathy for charters was high. Just not too compelling. Author has great skills and would read again in a longer form or deeper story. BUT, worry story may still be only about character development. So will check reviews of story plot and that something happens in addition to the angst of life and inner feelings of the characters. Those are good but not enough for me.

Random personal conflicts without resolution

The title says it all. It was senseless display of pain.
I want a refund