With a keen eye for the ordinary, this last book of Russell Banks explores the lives of 3 different families connected only by all living in the same small town and all supporters of Trump. He exposes deadly situations that are only too familiar to Americans the last few decades: guns, bad choices, drugs, child abuse, and perceived birth rights. All three stories are thought-provoking looks at our society and are beautifully written with excellent memorable characters.

Thanks to NetGalley and Alfred A Knopf Publishing for the ARC to read and review.

This book is comprised of three dark short stories/novellas written by the late Russell Banks. He passed away in 2023; a loss to American literature. The stories all take place in Sam Dent, a once bustling, now forgotten, decaying town in upstate New York.

My reaction after reading the first story was “Wow…Just wow.” What a great writer. Banks captures well the struggles of people who feel marginalized, the culture that has made a cult hero out of a con man former entertainer and president of the United States and the hate and vitriol that characterizes our current social/political climate as well as the devastating effects of that vitriol.

While the title American Spirits refers to the brand of cigarettes smoked by some of the characters, it of course is a metaphor for so much more. While reading about the sometimes horrors of everyday life may not be for everyone, I think I may have already found my favorite book of 2024.

Thanks to #netgalley and @aaknopf for the ARC.

Yall. This one was interesting and kept me hooked from page one to the end. I am so thankful to aaknopf, Russell Banks, PRH Audio, and Netgalley for granting me advanced audio and digital access to this read before it hits shelves on March 5, 2024.

Russell Banks takes listeners and readers on a ride of all rides as he narrates three true crime stories... at least, I'm sure they're based on true stories. I recognized the second one as the terrible case of The Hart family, where a pair of women adopted five black children from "abused" households and only neglected and abused them more, leaving their neighbors too concerned for their well-being.

Throughout this selection, themes of American politics, greed, and pride come through to note how such emotions often result in heartbreak, loss, and even death. Strap in and buckle up, because you're in for a ride.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, for an advance copy of this collection of short works about a small town in Upstate New York, from an author who wrote about America as it really was, full of pain, sadness, regret, ignorance, and worst of all lost hope.

Russell Banks was a writer with a rare gift, and a love for characters that others tend to omit, ignore, or write about only during election season. Banks wrote of Americans, doing ok, sometimes not. Of fathers who tried and failed, and of sons coming to grips with their place in life, or daughters just getting out to safe themselves. Little people, like a bus driver involved in a horrible accident, and an American hero to some, villain to others, John Brown in Cloudsplitter. Banks, wrote characters who were always just trying to get by, things just went wrong, and unfortunately humans are just humans, and there is nothing one can do. American Spirits is a collection of 3 stories, set in upstate New York, in the recent past, and dealing with politics, freedoms, families, failures and of course human frailty.

The books three stories take place in the same area of Upstate New York, and while some characters appear or are mentioned, they are not interlinked. All feature characters that have a clear plan, and a want for a life that is better than what they have now, its just that reality keeps getting in the way. Nowhere Man is about a family that has come into a bit of luck. Selling a plot of land and being able to pay off the mortgage, add a possible addition, and keep things going the way they are going. Except the land is now being used by a guy from New Jersey, to train either his high-tech security force, or his militia, depending on politics. Homeschooling is about two families living close together. One family is unconventional, which is confounding to the second family, and strains relations. Especially when the children keep saying that odd things are going on at home. The last is the Kidnapped, which tells of a couple who are taken to Canada by associates of their grandson, for money missing in a drug deal. This one sounds the most noirish, but is actually a deep look at family pain, trauma, and guilt.

American Spirits is also the name of the cigarettes smoked by some of the characters, a showing of the cancer that seems so present in our society, that only seems to be metastasizing. These are characters one really doesn't read or see, except maybe when politicians need votes. Ones who will knit hats for soldiers being deployed, while their lives slowly keep sliding down a hill they don't understand. Some are of the everyone's fault but me school, but deep down inside these characters don't understand why things are happening to them. In Kidnapped the couple was so proud of their son joining the army after 9/11 for God and country, but God took their son home, and left them with a Grandson they didn't understand. And years later left them with more problems. The first story, the owner of the house blames all them liberals, but not President Trump, for listening to all them guns going off at all hours. There are a lot of extremes in these stories. And confusion about what is right, or even how to make things right.

Recommended as Russell Banks was a great writer and his last works should be celebrated. Highly also recommend The Sweet Hereafter, Affliction and Foregone, one I don't think gets enough attention, but one I really enjoyed. This might not be a book for everyone since many read to escape reality, but one would be doing oneself a disservice.

I am not a fan of this book because I'm not sure how it all came together. It seemed like one story started and ended abruptly and the next did the same thing. It was just confusing.

Three interrelated short stories taking place in a rural fictional town in upstate New York. I liked how the stories focused on conservative blue color Trump supporters. Not a storyline you see often in literature. I found the first 2 stories very compelling and enjoyed the writing style. The third story was not as compelling.

American Spirits by Russel Banks is not the kind of book you “like,” it is the kind of book you think about and react to, the kind of book you want to talk about with a friend or a group, because the stories are touch on some of the biggest issues of our modern society - guns, drugs, violence, economic inequality, and the ways we treat those who hold different political views from our own. I think my biggest problem with this book was the way the stories were told - by an omniscient narrator well after the fact - which took away some of the emotional impact. Intriguing. Dark. Highly readable and disturbing.

Thornton Wilder gave us Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire and Russell Banks gives us Sam Dent, New York. Both communities are small, rural, and isolated. Considering the three stories in Banks’ AMERICAN SPIRITS in the light of Wilder’s OUR TOWN, however, one can’t help but speculate on how the passage of time has warped our vision of America. On one hand, we have stories that focus on the comfortable quotidian, while on the other the stories force us to ponder the darkness that seems to pervade the scene today.

Sam Dent is a community founded on optimistic land speculation following the revolutionary war, but the Banks’ stories seem to suggest that the American experiment may be floundering and clearly facing existential threats.

Hostility leading to tragedy underlies each story. In “Nowhere Man” a man sells a piece of property to a survivalist who has plans to turn it into a training camp for right wing activists. It is not surprising that guns and toxic masculinity ensue with predictable tragic consequences. “Homeschooling” seems to be based on actual events recently reported in the news. A lesbian couple have adopted four at risk African American children. The women’s strangeness and stories told by their children raise the suspicions of the neighbors who intervene resulting in yet another tragedy. The back porch gossip in the Wilder play is now replaced by social media. The final novella (“Kidnapped”) is a dark story with a tangled plot involving drug deals, guns, revenge, kidnapping, and murder. This one is a little less believable than the other two, mainly because the characters seem to be untethered to reality. I think making some of the main characters descendants of the original founders of the village is revealing, however, as it suggests just how far off the rails we may have come.

Banks’ vision of America seems dark and pessimistic, yet his talent for storytelling clearly is on display in all three novellas. Despite their unrelenting darkness, these are suspenseful and compelling stories of 21st century America worthy of the late Russell Banks.

Ever since the early fame of "Continental Drift" through "Affliction" (which was adapted into an Oscar-winning film) and last year's search for a paradisiacal sense of Americana in "The Magic Kingdom," Russell Banks has been on the Mount Rushmore of living North American storytellers alongside the likes of Atwood, Robinson, Irving, and McCarthy. "American Spirits" is an elegant, compelling legacy left by one of the G.O.A.T.S. He will be missed.

These three stories took my breath away! Wow! Wow! Wow! Russell Banks will be missed. These stories will haunt you.

I haven't had great luck with Russell Banks writing in the past, although I'm always intrigued by his concepts and so give his books a try despite rarely finding myself connecting with them. Unfortunately, this book held true to that tradition for me. Despite a really interesting idea and a fantastic cover, I just couldn't find my way into this one. His writing style just doesn't resonate with me and I find his characterizations difficulty connect with also. This one just wasn't a good fit for me.

This was wildly depressing, but in a good way. I really was into the storylines, and wanted to get to know these people better. He did a great job of developing his characters.

Three short stories are connected by northeastern conservatives in a city named, Sam Dent, after the founder of this small town in upper state New York.

“Nowhere Man” is about a man who sells 320 acres after his father dies for $250,000 to be split between his siblings. He didn’t realize that the buyer would be building a security training camp for militant extremists on this land with no trespassing for hunters.

“Homeschooling” is about two lesbian mothers who raise four Black adopted children from Texas. They think they know best on how to educate them but the neighbors aren’t so sure this is working.

“Kidnapped” is about grandparents who are taken captive to Canada for drug money. Will they be released?

The three short stories are well written which sparks a lot of emotional feelings. The characters and settings take you right there. However, the author mentioned “Trump” in each one which leaves a good or bad impression to readers who either love or dislike the former president.

The stories make us more aware of difficult-to-solve problems with ordinary folks in America. I imagine, that’s why Russell Banks wrote these before he passed in January, 2023 hoping that we could learn from them. He was a great storyteller and will be missed.

My thanks to Alfred A. Knopf and NetGalley for allowing me to read an early copy of this book with a release date of March 5, 2024.

There are not many authors, who can write a book such as this, and make it so wonderful. He truly is an American treasurer, and I look forward to many more books by him.

In three very loosely connected novellas, there is a low-level threat underlying each compelling story—not traditional suspense, but a tension and this sense that you, the reader, should keep on your toes because there is probably not going to be a happy ending.

What connects the stories primarily is the setting: A fictional rural town in upstate New York. More than one character has a MAGA hat, and, while conceding that Trump isn’t perfect, there’s a sense that even though he’s a lunatic, he’s a lunatic who is on *their* side—the side of the regular Joe who is white and owns more than one gun.

I enjoyed this book. It’s the first I’ve read by Russell Banks and was sorry to read about his passing.

NetGalley provided an advance copy of this novel, which RELEASES MARCH 5, 2024.

Russell Banks is an amazing writer. His latest is a collection of very loosely connected short stories that reflect politics and relationships in a small town in upstate New York. A mysterious stranger moves in on the property next door, a secretive family may be abusing their children, an elderly couple gets kidnapped. Every story is completely engrossing. I practically read this book in one sitting. One warning though -- these stories are sad, depressing, gut wrenching. This would be a great "book club" book. There's so much to discuss, although another warning -- the current political climate is a vital piece of these stories, so discussions could be problematic. This book is one that will stick with a reader for a long time.

"American Spirits" by Russell Banks presents three dark and interlocking tales that revolve around the residents of a rural town in New York. The stories delve into the lives of the townspeople and the shocking headlines that transform into local mythologies.

In the first tale, a husband sells property to a mysterious and temperamental stranger, sparking controversy and social media scrutiny when he questions the man's character publicly. The second tale revolves around a couple's growing concern about a mysterious family that moves in next door, with their children seeking help from the neighbors. The third narrative follows the kidnapping of an elderly couple by dangerous criminals who blackmail their grandson, demanding repayment of a debt.

The novel explores the suspenseful and thrilling dynamics within a community, shedding light on the hostile undercurrents in American politics and the impact of local tragedies on both a devastating and everyday level. Russell Banks, celebrated for his storytelling, crafts a compelling narrative that delves into the complexities of small-town life, human relationships, and the broader socio-political landscape. "American Spirits" promises to be an expertly crafted exploration of the intricate fabric of American fiction.

What an interesting set of short stories! I really enjoyed seeing things from a vastly different perspective than my own. Growing up on the East coast and being familiar with some of the people that shares similar mindsets as the main characters has definitely helped me better understand that life is never just one moment in time. It's a collection of moments that culminate together to bring people to the edge.

10/10 would highly recommend!!

Russell Banks, always a favorite, caps his legacy with this series of three linked, dark tales, all set in a small town in upper New York state, just across the Canadian border. Each story has a counterpart from the headlines, familiar to anyone cognizant and curious about, say, the, to many, unlikely ascent of the popularity of Donald Trump. So sorry to learn of his recent death, meaning that there won't be any more of his cleareyed insights.

American Spirits is a slice of small-town America at the current time, but it's also a look at how communities are shaped by the tragic stories of those around us. These three stories stand alone, but they also connect to create a larger picture.

What struck me in each story was the way that good intentions, or general goodness, is not enough for the forces we're up against--random acts, the bad intentions of others, the misunderstandings and missteps that have tragic consequences in our lives.

[ (Spoiler: the second story immediately reminded me of Sarah and Jennifer Hart, and the murders of their adopted children, and I feel that readers should be aware it was based on a true story.) (hide spoiler)]