It is the early 1970s; Nixon is in the White House and Corey Sifter, the young son of working-class parents, is befriended by the powerful Metarey family, whose patriarch is a kingmaker in the world of New York state politics. Corey becomes a yard-boy on the Metarey’s grand estate, and soon, through the family’s generosity, a student at a private boarding school. Before long, he is a confidant of the Metareys and an aide to the great New York Senator Henry Bonwiller as he runs for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. But as the Bonwiller presidential campaign gains momentum a crime is committed, and Corey is forced to reconcile his part in a complex tangle of morality, politics, gratitude, love and loyalty.
Set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and during one of the most turbulent eras of twentieth-century US politics, America America possesses the mastery of pace and voice of classic American fiction. Canin has written a magnificent novel about ambition and family, politics and crime, sex and love, small-town life and big-time power – and, ultimately, how vanity, greatness and tragedy combine to change history and fate.