What We Are
A Novel
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
This novel of a young Samoan-American’s search for authenticity is “a rollercoaster ride inside the haunted house of American multi-cultural sin and shame” (Sherman Alexie).
The twenty-eight-year-old mixed-race son of a Samoan immigrant, Paul Tusifale is desperate to find his place in an American culture that barely acknowledges his existence. Within the Silicon Valley landscape of grass-roots activists and dotcom headquarters, where the plight of migrant workers is ever-present, Paul drifts on and off the radar.
An unemployed drifter who defiantly—even violently—defends those in need, Paul soon discovers that life as an urban Robin Hood will never provide the answers he seeks. So he decides to try the straight-and-narrow: getting a job, obeying the law, and reconnecting with his family. Along the way, Paul moves through the lives of sinister old friends, suburban cranksters, and septuagenarian swingers.
A dynamic addition to America’s diverse literature of the outsider, What We Are brings to life the pull of a departed father’s homeland, the anger of class divisions, the noise of the evening news, and the pathos of the disengaged.
“Peter Nathaniel Malae is the real deal. He’s like a young Nelson Algren or Richard Wright, one of those writers who can hit with both hands.” —Russell Banks
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Malae's debut novel (after the collection Teach the Free Man) is a high energy rant narrated by a half-Samoan/half-white drifter trying to survive in a world bent on marginalizing seekers of truth and integrity. Malae's antihero, Paul Tusifale, an ex-con and poet, wanders the dark corners of Silicon Valley like a corrosive Midas, ruining everything he comes in contact with, whether it's a civil rights march or a wealthy patron's poetry fellowship. Paul's voice is filled with anger and intelligence, and though his rants can come off preachy byproducts of his moral superiority and self-imposed martyrdom, when he backs away from smart-ass comments, superior glares, and Shakespearean quotes, his toughness transforms into a heartbreaking shield against futility, and he becomes a man with an idea on how to save us all. The novel's at its strongest during these moments, bearing a message that in the face of the madness of the modern world, the most important thing is to know yourself and to hold onto that at whatever cost. It's got rough patches, but the voice is gold.
