Anna Pitoniak's twisty third novel, Our American Friend, clearly draws at least some inspiration from former First Lady Melania Trump. But this fast-paced combination of thriller, Cold War history and sharp commentary on making one's way in the world as a woman stands on its own. Pitoniak's novel follows two very different women: Lara Caine, a Russian ex-model married to a blowhard U.S. president, and Sofie Morse, the young journalist invited to write Mrs. Caine's biography.
In classic thriller fashion, Pitoniak (The Futures; Necessary People) begins her story near the end: Sofie and her husband, Ben, are living under the radar in Split, Croatia, after a hinted-at scandal involving the First Lady. How they got there, and why, is a mystery that slowly unravels over the following chapters, as readers learn about Sofie's background and how she became drawn into Lara Caine's rarefied life. As the First Lady tells Sofie her story, the narration begins shifting between Sofie's present-day experiences and Lara's life growing up as the daughter of a diplomat in postwar Moscow and Paris. Readers meet Lara's parents and sister, and get glimpses into her privileged childhood, the challenges of her teen years and the secrets the public doesn't know. As Sofie absorbs more and more of Lara's story--meeting Lara's family, even traveling to the First Lady's weekend home--she can't shake the question: Why has Lara decided her biography should be written now? And why did she choose Sofie to write it?
Pitoniak expertly evokes the tense atmosphere of Cold War-era Europe, where Soviet diplomats living abroad enjoyed greater freedoms than at home, but were still constantly looking over their shoulders. At first, Sofie's present-day life seems less complicated, but as her time with the First Lady continues, she starts wondering if there's more to this project than meets the eye. The secondary characters include several other sharp-eyed women (Sofie's sister, Lara's mother, a family friend), all of whom must make different, difficult choices to build the lives they want. Through the intertwined lives of her characters, Pitoniak muses on the mutability of history, the trickiness of making decisions for love, and the ways in which secrets--even long-buried ones--can take on a life of their own.
With sharp observations on everything from D.C. insider politics to the mundane details of family life, Our American Friend is both an engaging feminist thriller and a meditation on the ways history often surprises even the people who make it. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Shelf Talker: Anna Pitoniak's smart, twisty third novel combines Cold War history with espionage and sharp feminist social commentary.