Alpha and Omega

The prepublication reviews for Ethan Canin's new novel America, America, which will be released next Tuesday, keep coming in, and the author must be well pleased. John Updike, writing in The New Yorker says, "Its reach is wide and its touch often masterly." And on the other end of the lit-cred spectrum, Entertainment Weekly calls it "satisfying, compulsively readable saga."--David E