Rating: 2 1/2 stars

A satirical approach to what it means to be American, disguised as a textbook, posing as a guide to help immigrants assimilate to the American way of life.

Biti Namoeteri has left his South American home of Liechtenstein and comes to America to get his graduate degree. The book begins with helpful airport terminology, vocabulary and sample dialogues designed to help Biti, and other foreigners, experience a smooth arrival at American airports.

While further examples illustrate how to secure an apartment, and even provides a complete script for receiving your first American phone call: the telemarketer.

Once ensconced in his college classes Biti is guided on how to make friends and introduced to the wonders of multi-level marketing, resulting in his naïve participation in a pyramid scheme. As Biti navigates his new endeavor he finds himself smitten with fellow student Janet Broccoli; requiring knowledge of a whole other set of vocabulary and definitions.

It’s not long before Biti learns of another favorite American pastime: personal injury lawsuits. Biti is coached by Angelo Tongue—personal injury lawyer and chiropractor—on how to turn his own carelessness into dollar signs. However, Biti’s American experience is not so much a victory, as it is an agony of defeat.

Angus Woodward, author of short story collection, Down at the End of the River (Margaret Media 2008), adopted an outsider’s point of view on the American way of life to illustrate just how bizarre it may appear to other cultures.

Written in a rather dry, dead-pan style, Woodward’s English-as-a-second language faux textbook includes dialogue scripts that mainly border on the mundane to the silly, while the issues and events relate as over-the-top.

However, the vocabulary words and definitions are darkly comic and successfully illustrate the materialism, preoccupation, and self-indulgence that may be found in American lifestyles.

Although the satirical, pseudo-textbook format isn’t original, it works in this instance; and, while Americanisation challenges the attention span, the topics and definitions, taken on their own merits, make this a solid effort.
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Hardcover: 200 pages
Publisher: Livingston Pr (September 30, 2011)
ISBN-13: 978-1604890846