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"Almost everything seems located in the past," writes Susan Sontag, AB'51, in the prologue of her fourth novel, In America: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). "Perhaps that's an illusion, but I feel nostalgic for every era before I was born." Sontag brings to life her nostalgia for the 1800s in this fictional account of celebrated Polish actress Maryna Zalezowska--a character based on real-life 19th-century diva Helena Modrzejewska. Beginning in 1876, the novel follows Maryna as she abandons the stage in her native land to establish a utopian commune near Anaheim, California. Trailing behind her to this new land of opportunity are a group of Poles that includes her husband, her son, and a young love-struck writer, Ryszard Kierul, modeled after Nobel laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz, Modrzejewska's lover. When the commune fails, Maryna returns to theater, traveling across the United States as an American railway car performer named Marina Zalenska. Sontag's narrative goes on to reveal the workings of 19th-century American theater and a woman's self-transformation, through heated romantic encounters and an ultimately successful and rewarding career. --E.C.