Novel of Identity and Aspirations

A Harvard graduate student, a Jew from Egypt, is preparing to become the assimilated American he longs to be. But when he bonds with an Arab cab driver nicknamed Kalashnikov, he begins to neglect his studies. Together they carouse the bars and cafés of Cambridge, seduce strangers, ridicule America, and skinny-dip in Walden Pond. As final exams approach and the cab driver is threatened with deportation, the grad student faces the decision of his life: whether to cling to his dream of  assimilation or ditch it all to defend his Old World friend.  From bestselling novelist Andre Aciman comes Harvard Square, a powerful tale of love, friendship, and becoming American in the 1970s.