The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas

The New York Times Book Review
- Ayad Akhtar
…a richly detailed, affecting account of two men bound, as it turned out, by more than just an act of violence…Bhuiyan, Stroman. Extremes along the continuum of American identity, each an example with much to tell us about who we are. The one, an immigrant who, by dint of pluck and abilities, comes to embody some of the best of our nation's values, as well as a trace of that unseemly, self-promoting daemon so central to the American self. The other, born and raised in Texas, defined by the narrow creed of his love for motorcycles and guns and naked women, reveals the costs of a nation beholden to ruthless competition and relentless individualism, a society that winnows out the less capable, the more damaged, and where festering rage seeks a violent discharge.