Fine First Novel: "Petropolis" by Anya Ulinich. Russian teenager goes to art school, gives up baby for adoption, lands in Phoenix Arizona as mail-order bride.

Also; Mystery novels from modern China, Xiaolong Qiu's "Case of Two Cities" and "When Red Is Black". A guy I work with who lived in China for a while recommended these; as he pointed out, if you really want the flavor of a country, read its mystery novels.

On a similar note; Passport to Crime, from Ellery Queen magazine. A collection of mystery stories from around the world.

Re Modern Southern Gothic; George Saunders, George Singleton, Daniel Woodrell. Big three online mags (IMHO) are Mississippi Review, StorySouth and Dead Mule.

Just finished "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz ; it lives up to its publicity. Didn't know all that stuff about Porfirio Robirosa!! thought he was just a playboy/gigolo. Made his relationship with Zsa Zsa look clean by comparison.

Another, possibly better America-is-the-melting-pot author; Sigrid Nunez, author of "The Last of Her Kind" (title is taken from the author's introduction to Middlemarch); the autobiographical "A Feather on the Breath of God"; and "for Rouenna", about the army nurses in Vietnam.