An American Dreamer
Life in a Divided Country
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3.6 • 5 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A man navigates the deep divisions in America today and discovers that sometimes change can start by finding common ground with your neighbors in this immersive account by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Thank You for Your Service and The Good Soldiers.
“A timely and compelling argument for tolerance and moral character in times of extreme antagonism.”—The New York Times
As this powerful book begins, Brent Cummings finds himself coping with the feeling that the country he loves is fracturing in front of his eyes. An Iraq war veteran, raised to believe in a vision of America that values fairness, honesty, and respect for others, Cummings is increasingly surprised by the behavior and beliefs of others, and engulfed by the fear, anger, and confusion that is sweeping through his beloved country as he tries to hold on to his values and his hope for America’s future.
David Finkel, known for his unique, in-depth reporting, spent fourteen years deep inside Brent Cummings’s world to create this intimate and vivid portrait of a man’s life, his work, family, community, his thoughts, and his quest for connection, as America becomes ever more divided. Cummings was one of the unforgettable figures in Finkel’s The Good Soldiers, a book about which The New York Times stated, “Finkel has made art out of a defining moment in history. You will be able to take this book down from the shelf years from now, and say: This is what happened. This is what it felt like.”
An American Dreamer illuminates, with the deepest empathy, the feelings and lives of many people in America today, and it is a brilliant chronicle of one person’s everyday experiences of frustration, confusion, and hope.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Finkel (Thank You for Your Service), a staff writer for the Washington Post, examines America's political, social, and cultural divides in this immersive profile of Brent Cummings, an Iraq War veteran and instructor in military science at the University of North Georgia. Drawing on conversations with Cummings and his friends and family, primarily between 2016 and 2021, Finkel finds that the unifying belief among those he interviews—across the political spectrum—is the idea that the country is fracturing. This is especially true of Cummings, who wrestles with the traumatic social upheaval he witnessed in Iraq and who believes that a similarly traumatic state of social conflict is besetting the country during the presidency of Donald Trump, whom Cummings opposes while living and working in a solidly pro-Trump community. Meanwhile, Cummings and his family face down a series of personal challenges, which Finkel casts against national events. For example, a late chapter recounts Cummings's feelings of isolation and ruminations on political violence during a 2018 stint in Israel, where he worked training Palestinian Authority security forces; Finkel's prosodic narration has Cummings reflecting on Trump's calls for a U.S.-Mexico border wall in the shadow of the West Bank barrier wall. It's an evocative contribution to the shelf on what ails America in the age of Trump.
