What the Critics said: Uncertain Journey

“An illegal immigrant struggles to find a home in this moving tale of loneliness and belonging. Writing with a limpid prose and a shrewd sympathy for his characters, Rouman finds universality in the travails of an iconic outsider.”

— Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

“James Rouman delves deeper into the literature of the immigrant experience, which he first explored from the Greek American perspective in his debut novel Underwater Dreams. The ethnic background of his characters is enriched with the introduction of an Albanian man, who dreams of a new life just as the Greek immigrants to North America once did. Rouman has created more than an absorbing story for he sketches the complex web of personal and social relations in a multicultural society that can no longer absorb immigrants and pushes them towards exclusion rather than inclusion. The novel puts a face on an anonymous group — illegal or undocumented migrants live in the shadows of our societies, visible but ghostlike.”

— Bryan Kontos, Odyssey Magazine

“An illegal immigrant is a human being, not a statistic, and this is the most important underlying message. The work of this polished author will elicit a wide range of emotion from sympathy to skepticism. Articulate and insightful, his descriptions bring to dramatic life an individual who simply wants to escape the bad conditions in his homeland for a better existence.”

— Julia Ann Charpentier, Foreword Reviews

“Part of what makes Rouman’s narrative so enjoyable is that it evolves into much more than a sermon on the perils of illegal immigration in the 21st century. Uncertain Journey is, at its heart, a tale of clashing worlds, the universal pursuit of identity, and most significantly, the irrepressible will to experience life on one’s own terms. At the end of the day, it’s the sheer richness of Rouman’s subject matter that makes Uncertain Journey so captivating – and so convincing – a read.”

— Sonia Tsuruoka, IndieReader

What the Critics said: Underwater Dreams

“… A laudable effort … an interesting addition to the literature of the Greek American immigrant experience.”

— Odyssey Magazine

“The characters in Underwater Dreams, and the depth of their feelings for one another remain in my head and heart. I suspect they’ll be there for a long time.”

— Robert Krause, The National Herald