The increasingly manic episodes lend The All-American a resemblance to comic picaresque novels ... His hotheaded bafflement over the question is part of this novel’s charm. Bucky, a highly likable meathead, thinks better with his fists than his brain, and the shortage of introspection allows the story to zip from one calamity to another.
An immersive, fast-paced story ... Milan’s writing is tight, with fresh and vivid descriptions that illuminate the contrasts in Bucky’s background and cultural makeup. The novel raises questions about who and what exactly determines your identity.
Amid the uncomfortable laughter, Milan confronts transracial identity, societal roles chosen and forced, limits of language, 'good' and 'bad' mutability, and the porousness of truth and lies.
Bucky is clever but impetuous and tends to handle challenges as if it’s third and goal, charging forward with head down, legs churning. Milan throws a lot at him, putting him through the seven stages of grief as his old life fades away and he’s pulled deeper into an ugly tale of by-the-book repatriation ... It’s dark stuff, but Milan sustains in his narrator an amusingly bewildered, blundering, bumptious voice along with a leavening sense of absurdity.
The setup is convincingly Kafkaesque (if devoid of absurd humor), and Milan skillfully captures Bucky’s increasing disorientation. This is a memorable riff on identity.
