one book to understand america?

well, last week's topic of discussion appears to be a dud: nobody's responded to it so far.

but i encourage you to go back and express an opinion, and i'm going to try again today.

this one comes from about a decade ago. i was rummaging around in a bookshop in greenwich village. another customer spoke to me in a foreign accent. he asked me to recommend a book that would make him understand america.

i drew a blank. i mean i thought of a bunch of possibilities like moby dick, leaves of grass, the jungle, various books by mark twain, norman mailer, and others, but i couldn't come up with one that covered enough ground yet stood alone, without a background or context that had to include the bible, shakespeare, the declaration of independence, and more, so i gave up and told him i couldn't do it.

maybe i took his request too narrowly. he might've been willing to read 2 or 3 books, and i may've taken "a book" too literally. it's a bit late to think of that.

anyway, it came back to me last week when i thought of posting topics to discuss, and i also thought of an answer i'd overlooked: a collection of arthur miller's plays, if such a volume exists. his best-known dramas deal with issues still current and going back to early colonial times, and show the impact of public and work-related actions on relationships between individuals and within families, tho some important ground gets left uncovered. like, maybe i should've said the autobiography of malcolm x.

any other suggestions? your thoughts, please.