America Was Hard to Find: A Novel

Written by Kathleen Alcott

Narrated by Tristan Morris

Ecuador, 1969: An American expatriate, Fay Fern, sits in the corner of a restaurant, she and her young son Wright turned away from the television where Vincent Kahn becomes the first man to walk on the moon.

Years earlier, Fay and Vincent meet at a pilots’ bar in the Mojave Desert. Both seemed poised for reinvention—the married test pilot, Vincent, as an astronaut; the spurned child of privilege, Fay, as an activist. Their casual affair ends quickly, but its consequences linger.

Though their lives split, their senses of purpose deepen in tandem, each becoming heroes to different sides of the political spectrum of the 1960s and 70s: Vincent an icon with no plan beyond the mission for which he has single-mindedly trained, Fay a leader of a violent leftist group whose anti-Vietnam actions make her one of the FBI’s most wanted. With her last public appearance, a demonstration that frames the Apollo program as a vehicle for distracting the American public from its country’s atrocities, Fay leaves Wright to contend with her legacy, his own growing apathy, and the misdeeds of both his mother and his country.

An immense, vivid reimagining of the Cold War era, America Was Hard to Find traces the fallout of the cultural revolution that divided the country and explores the meaning of individual lives in times of upheaval. It also confirms Kathleen Alcott’s reputation as a fearless and vital voice in fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: May 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9780062917621

Kathleen Alcott

Born in 1988 in Northern California, Kathleen Alcott is the author of the novels Infinite Home and The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets. Her short stories and nonfiction have appeared in Zoetrope: All Story, ZYZZYVA, The Guardian, Tin House, The New York Times Magazine, the Bennington Review, and elsewhere. In 2017, she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award; her short fiction has been translated into Korean and Dutch. She divides her time between New York City, where she teaches fiction at Columbia University, and Vermont, where she serves as a 2018-2019 visiting professor at Bennington College. 

Reviews for America Was Hard to Find

[m.belljackson · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Disappointing start with yet another dead horse in a stupid macho bet.Fay Fern was not only abundantly self-centered, but she locked into dimwit radicalismin contrast with how smart she was reputed to be. She also sacrificed her relationship with her sonwhile leaving him clueless about his father and, duh, the father so clueless about the son that,NASA though he was, he could not do the math to see his own child in front of him. Geez.

[alphawoman_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Sometimes I liked it, other times it dragged and dragged. The motivation of the characters was muddled. I came across one editing error while telling the tale of the first time he appeared on LIFE magazine cover. He gave his age and a location he could not possibly have been according to the timeline and people present. A lot of the side stories were ponderous and held minute details perhaps to make the non essential characters more meaninful and not some last second inclusion to make sense of the story.The sister, Charlie, was a much more interesting character than the main character. Fay came across as self centered , narcissistic, and totally unlikable. Nothing to admire and we are left wondering why (as smart as she was suppose to be) didn't she find better use of her "power". It would have deviated from the path the story was headed, but much more plausible. Teeth were mentioned over and over, like a fetish. The space aspect was suspect. Like the author watched The Right Stff and had a crush on the Sam Shepherd character and wrote a high brow fantasy about space man meets the Weatherman.I couldn't wait for this book to be over. The last two books I've read seem to encompassesd too big of a broad stroke. Too much, too many moving parts.One laugh out loud moment with a story told by irrelevant character, Jean, about seeing someone on the street he believes is one of his one night stands. This group of characters were entertaining. Maybe I'm just getting old.Please give me a good book to read and spare me the mediocrity posing as intellectualism.