This book is The American Dream--it could go either way. Are immigrants inching towards financial and political independence? Or are they tumbling down a tunnel towards defeat and ruin? Will they be respected, loathed, shunned, or deported? All of this is explored with a charming tone in this quietly satirical book. The story is not a gruesome one--au contraire, it couldn't have gone better if you had planned it. Only 'best case scenario' isn't really all that great when you scratch the surface even a little bit.
Lulu is from Albania, and while she has arrived illegally, her second employer commissions his lawyer best friend to help her get a green card--which could be a dream come true, only it slowly becomes clear to Lulu that these people want her to be a particular kind of immigrant--one with a brutal and yet picturesque past--and when she gives it to them, they make her the center of attention. When they find out that she has been spinning tales that are more fiction than fact, they shun her. It is not an easy path to toe. the book is set in George W. Bush's America, post 9/11 when there were peak levels of suspicion for anything that wasn't entirely native. Her employer, his friends, her gangster Albanian friends, all of the characters play a role in showing the reader just how tough things are for Lulu, who has her own faults as well (who doesn't?). Recommended.
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