Book Review: Jason Mott's 'People Like Us' explores the struggles of semi-fame and American identity

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How does one follow up writing “A Hell of a Book” that wins the National Book Award? If you’re Jason Mott, you write a sort-of, not-really, by all legal terms fictionalized — according to the forward — autobiographical story about what life is like as a semi-famous writer.

Or actually you write two viewpoints: one about a writer running away from his roots that seem to be choking the life out of him and the other about a writer running to help soothe the roots that made him.

The first, a middle-aged man who wrote said award-winning novel, is constantly misrecognized because writers, even award winning ones, don’t have status like film stars. Sometimes he goes along with it and he agrees with them, for good reason; there is safety in being someone else. The second is a man who can’t seem to outrun what it means to be American or a stalker who threatened to kill him, both showing up, often when least expected. This makes man No. 2 run not only from death and America but to seek out purchasing a gun, because his fame isn’t able to protect him.

This novel, reminiscent of “The Invisible Man” and the works of Colson Whitehead and Ta-Nehisi Coates, has an inquisitive stance on things like time travel, sea monsters, death of loved ones and guns, and what each can do to a man, especially those who seem to be the referential mouthpiece of what it means to be an American today.

One man meanders through Minnesota, offering support to the masses through speaking engagements. The other lands what seems to be a dream job in “Europeland.” Through old memories, the drudgery of book tours, the never ending “what’s next” endlessly questioning their creativity, both imagine what could be and what could have been. The flipping between the two men’s viewpoints of the world and what it can offer is humorous one moment and tugs at the right heartstrings the next.

This roller coaster ride filled with quips and wordplay personalizes some of the most tragic moments in America’s recent history. The tragedy and pain through this never ending climb to make sense of all that has come before, and all that will come after, is “like Sisyphus, a man who never misses leg day.”

Filled with highlightable quotes and moments that make you stop and look around to see if anyone else is experiencing what you’re reading, Mott’s “People Like Us” echoes the pain and mystery of where life leads, the choices it hands us and the hope and desire for change.

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