ANOTHER New Author in the Last Month

This is getting ridiculous - in a good way.  The Book of Unknown Americans, Cristina Henriquez, is an ARC that I actually asked for.  I thought it sounded good, and it was. Alfred A. (not Newman) Knopf, a division of Random House, is the publisher.  And, in fact, the book hit the shelves this past Tuesday.

The story is about how a whole variety of Spanish-speaking people, from countries in South and Central America and Mexico, came to live in an apartment building in Newark, Delaware.  It's interesting that Cristina initially wanted to tell the story of her father, who came to Delaware from Panama.  That morphed into a story about the "unknown Americans," people like her father who came to live in small cities all around the country. Here is how Knopf describes the book:

A boy and girl who fall in love.
Two families whose hopes collide with destiny.
An extraordinary novel that offers a resonant
new definition of what it means to be Americans.

I normally don't get into these kinds of details, but Knopf is definitely expecting big things from this book.  To begin with, the first printing is 75,000 copies.  That's really a lot for a young author (this is her 2nd novel).  And here's what they have on the back cover of the book:

NATIONAL MEDIA APPEARANCES, including NPR and print features
AUTHOR TOUR, including Chicago, Iowa City, and New York
NATIONAL PRINT ADVERTISING in The New York Times Book Review, Bookpage, the Chicago Tribune, and the Women's Review of Books
HISPANIC OUTREACH, including advertising in El Diario and Latina magazine
REGIONAL OUTREACH, including local Facebook users
INTERACTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, including sharing real immigrant stories with hashtag #UnknownAmericans
Facebook.com/CristinaHenriquezAuthor
MAJOR BLOGGER TOUR
READING GROUP GUIDE
READING GROUP PROMOTION, including ReadingGroupGuide.com and BookBrowse
JACKET BLOWUPS AVAILABLE

Wow.  I don't know how it's going to do, but the publisher is sure promoting the heck out of it.  I will report back to you in 3 months and let you know if Knopf/Random House hit the mark on this one.