The Other Americans

Jeremy Gorecki has led a busy life. His mother died when he was young and his father’s alcoholism meant that he burdened the responsibility of the whole family. He worked long hours as a teenager, he joined the army during Iraq, and then he joined the police force. Jeremy spends his life working in deference to others. He has to help raise his sister when his father cannot, he has to fight an unjust war carried out by his country, and he has to deal with the office politics of a police department where he feels that he does not truly belong. Jeremy’s journey involves learning to live for himself and carving out his own niche of responsibility in a complicated world.

Jeremy has long harbored feelings for Nora and refuses to allow her to exit his life a second time. He commits himself fully to their fledgling relationship and, for the first time, begins to open up about the variety of traumas which have affected his life. Jeremy is angry at everything in the world. He argues with his father, with other vets, and with his best friend. He cannot bring himself to talk about this in the support group nor is he able to effectively confront the emotional traumas that have built up throughout his life. This changes when he dates Nora. Not only is she a relic of his past, she is as emotionally fragile as he is. He confides in her and talks about subjects he would never discuss with anyone else. Jeremy becomes emotionally dependent on Nora. She leaves him and his life begins to spiral out of control. They reunite and Jeremy is able to reconstruct the facade of an emotionally healthy, prosperous person that he has always hoped to be and which his circumstances have continually denied him. 

Anderson Baker Junior is the son of the owner of the bowling alley and the man who murders Driss. His true identity remains hidden throughout the novel. At first, he seems to be the typical high school bully who was forever scarred by his emotionally unavailable father and the material circumstances of his upbringing. A.J. develops into the consummate villain of the story, however, as he cannot maintain the pretense that he is an upstanding, regular member of the community.

A.J. is a representation of the way in which American society can hide its prejudices behind a polite mask. His interactions with Nora are seemingly innocuous. He tries to shake her hand at court and teaches her how to bowl. His past as a high school bully is perhaps something he has grown out of and he tells people that he has moved home to help his mother deal with her Parkinson’s diagnosis. The small town seems to accept that the wayward young man has grown up into a regular member of society.

The mask begins to slip. A.J. harbors racist thoughts about the world around him. He blames an Asian woman for his business failing, he has tattoos of racist iconography, and the racist slurs of his past return as soon as he faces the prospect of jail time. The racist tattoos are a fitting metaphor for A.J.’s deeply felt prejudices. He can keep the tattoo covered for most of the time but there is no way to remove the hateful ideas which are scarred into his flesh. A.J. is a racist and a murderer. That he is able to hide these facts from society for so long functions more as a damning indictment of society than it does of A.J.. 

Maryam is a grieving widow and a domineering mother. She projects an image of grace and fragility into the world but imposes herself on the lives of those closest to her. Maryam convinces her husband to move to the United States with a deft act of trickery. She manipulates information to seem as though her husband’s life is in more danger than it actually is. They move to America, have two children, and open two businesses. Maryam and Driss fight often and their relationship can be strained at times. Maryam might seem like the acquiescent wife, but she gets her way more often than not.

Nora and Salma are examples of Maryam’s influence as a mother. Maryam was not able to convince Nora to follow the career path her mother laid out from a young age. Maryam constantly reminds Nora of her disappointing career. Nora might not have become a doctor or a lawyer, but she constantly compares herself to her mother’s expectations. Maryam has a huge influence over every decision Nora makes but not always in a positive sense. Salma has adhered to everything Maryam ever expected or suggested. She has built herself a model life made in her mother’s ideal image.

However, Salma is not happy. She has done everything Maryam ever suggested and is now trapped in a prison of maternal expectation. Salma develops a pill addiction because the numbness of the medication dulls her constant awareness of her mother’s influence on her life. Salma does not know whether she truly enjoys anything or whether she is just spending her life trying to adhere to her mother’s expectations. In the case of both sisters, Maryam has dominated her daughters’ lives. She may appear to be the doting mother or grieving widow, but she constantly works, manipulates, and strives to create better lives for those around her, whether they want those lives or not.