Newly released novel delves into the idea of personal ‘roots’

From the outside, Dunn is the quintessential Englishwoman. She watches cricket matches with her parents on weekends, attended proper English boarding school and can make a superb pot of tea. Her life, it seems to any outsider, is ideal. Born in the United States and adopted by British parents, Dunn has always felt like an interloper in her prim, though loving, English family. An insatiable free spirit and gangly redhead in a clan of perfectly coiffed blondes, the impending identity crisis that she suffers is nearly inevitable.

At 28, and still unsure of her biological background, she contacts the adoption agency in New York, and they send a life-changing letter written by her mother on the day she was born. Elated and filled with a connection to a family she has never met, Dunn travels to America to live with her birth mother and work pro bono as a publicist and agent for her mother Billie’s art business. Billie is a vainglorious artist with a penchant for drinking and a fixation with mental illness. Dunn’s father, Walt, is an unctuous right-wing politician involved in underhanded government schemes designed for his own financial gain. Dunn also meets a panoply of assorted relatives so alien to her that they have seemingly sprung from another dimension. Despite her parents being Southern—about as opposite from British as it is possible to be—Pippa glimpses pieces of herself in them as they strive to shower her with belated parental nurturing. Yet another conundrum in her attempt at an intercontinental life is the choice between two men: the exotic quasi soul mate she left behind, and the charismatic American who encourages her to be herself. At first enchanted by the glamorous, larger-than-life attitude in America, deep down she misses the orderly, quaint existence she led in England. Is the American life and family she dreamed of an unattainable illusion of smoke and mirrors? “The English American” tells a universal story of overcoming self-doubt in an intensely fresh and readable way.

As she struggles to acclimate with her newfound family, torn between loving the new and leaving the old, Larkin portrays Dunn’s vulnerable journey of self-discovery with sparkling whimsicality and ardor. Though the protagonist’s voice is tinged with naiveté, it comes across as both charming and facetious and you will find yourself wanting to reprimand and protect her in equal parts. Praised by Vogue magazine, Publisher’s Weekly and The New York Times, to name a few, this comedic jaunt into the nature v. nurture enigma is sure to acquire a beloved spot in hearts and on bookshelves for years to come.

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