Want to learn the ideas in The Other America better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of The Other America by Michael Harrington here.
Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.
Video Summaries of The Other America
We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on The Other America, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by Michael Harrington.
1-Page Summary of The Other America
Overall Summary
The Other Americans is a novel about how some people in small town America are affected by the aftermath of a hit and run attack. The book explores themes of race, identity, guilt, and grief through multiple perspectives. It was nominated for an award because it’s well written.
A woman named Nora Guerraoui learns that her father Driss was killed in an accident. She returns to the small town where she grew up to mourn with her mother Maryam and sister Salma. A police officer named Jeremy Gorecki hears about the attack at work, and he visits the victim’s family home. He reconnects with his former classmate Nora, who is grieving over her loss. Jeremy lost his mother when he was young, so he understands what Nora is experiencing because of a similar experience in his own life.
In this passage, Detective Coleman interviews the family. Nora believes that the attack was racially motivated. They moved to America amid political violence in 1980s Morocco. Driss’ first business, a donut shop, was burned down after 9/11. He bought the diner with insurance money and it is now his livelihood. Efraín’s wife Marisela pressures him to go to the police but he refuses because of traumatic memories of Driss haunting him from when they were children together in Mexico City.
The family buries Driss. Jeremy bails his friend Fierro out of jail for smashing up his ex-wife’s car, and insists that he go to an anger management group. Nora discovers that her father left a large sum of money only to her in his will. Salma is envious and the two sisters squabble. Nora moves into her father’s desert cabin, while she decides what she wants to do with the rest of her life. She runs into Jeremy in a nearby bar and they flirt; he’s been in love with her since high school but has kept it a secret because of their age difference (they were both students at the same high school). Coleman interviews Anderson, who owns the bowling alley next to Driss’ diner, about why there are always fights there on Friday nights when people come from all over town for karaoke night at Driss’ place. The two men have history together: Anderson used to work as a bouncer at one of Driss’ clubs back when he was young and got fired for stealing from customers—he blames this on how much alcohol he had consumed after hours—and then tried robbing him years later after working as an independent contractor doing security jobs around town (Coleman caught him trying this, which is also how they met).
Nora discovers that her father was having an affair with a woman named Beatrice. She replaces all the bedding in the cabin as she reexamines her image of her father. Many of Nora’s partners have cheated, and she wonders whether this is connected to her father’s infidelity. The diner reopens but Maryam struggles to concentrate on running it because she misses Efraín so much. Jeremy and Fierro attend the anger management groups together, although they don’t get along very well at first. They eventually become friends again after going through some difficult times together. Jeremy stays near Nora for comfort during his troubled times, which angers Maryam even more than before; however, he also starts dating another girl who helps him forget about his troubles temporarily until they break up later on in the story.
Coleman finds security camera footage of a street near Driss’ diner and identifies the car responsible. It belongs to Anderson, the owner of the bowling alley. Anderson confesses to hitting Coleman with his car but claims that it was an accident. Nora attends court as charges are filed against Anderson for hit-and-run and manslaughter. She meets A.J., one of her high school bullies who scrawled racist slurs on her locker but was never punished because he was on the wrestling team. He tries to shake her hand at court, but she refuses him because she is determined to prove that her father was murdered instead of having died in an accidental hit-and-run incident like everyone else believes happened. Nora’s mother wants to sell their diner, but Nora won’t let them do so until they have properly honored their father’s memory by keeping his legacy alive through running it themselves. Meanwhile, Nora struggles in balancing three jobs (her full time job at the diner, part time work for Jeremy’s business and managing a new catering gig ) while also trying to figure out how she feels about dating Jeremy or any other guy when all this drama has been going on around her. Efrain gives a statement regarding what happened between him and Coleman after Coleman left his house earlier in the day before getting into his car that night.
