Title: Netherland
Author: Joseph O'Neill
Following 9/11, Hans van den Broek finds himself living alone in Manhattan after his wife and son return to their native London. In order to deal with his loneliness, van den Broek joins a cricket club and finds himself learning about a whole different side of NYC.
This book reminded me a lot of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Absurdistan, both contemporary viewpoints of immigrant experiences in New York. But I liked it better than either of those books. It was slightly improbable that closed-off, buttoned-up van den Broek, too reserved to go chasing after his beloved wife and son, would end up spending his weekends playing cricket with Pakistanis and Trinidadians and get involved in a mafia-esque operation in Staten Island, but that's where O'Neill takes us. I found myself rooting for van den Broek and his family as the novel progressed.
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