American Romantic
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A young diplomat is torn between two women during the earliest days of the Vietnam War in this "wide-ranging and well-written" novel (The Christian Science Monitor).
Harry Sanders is a young Foreign Service officer in 1960s Indochina when the course of his life is suddenly altered by a dangerous and clandestine meeting with insurgents that ends in quiet disaster—and a brief but passionate encounter with Sieglinde, a young German woman.
Absorbing the impact of his misstep, Harry returns briefly to Washington before traveling to Africa, Scandinavia, and the Mediterranean on assignments. He marries the captivating May, who is fleeing her own family disappointments in New England and looking for an escape into Harry's diplomatic life. On the surface, they are a handsome, successful couple—but the memory of Sieglinde persists in Harry's thoughts, and May has her own secrets too.
As Harry navigates the increasingly treacherous waters of diplomacy in an age of interminable conflict, he also tries to narrow the distance between himself and the two alluring women who have chosen to love him, in a novel from a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist that "considers the toll that a life lived upon the great stage of international politics can take on a man of substance" (Kirkus Reviews).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Just's 18th novel (after Rodin's Debutante) tells the sensitive, elegant stories of a young, desperately na ve American foreign service officer and the two women who love him. Harry Sanders is a low-level diplomat with the U.S. embassy in Saigon in the early 1960s. It's an exotic posting for a young bachelor, with the excitement of an emerging guerrilla war and the passion of a beautiful, restless German girlfriend, Sieglinde. Harry's budding career, however, takes a fatal turn when he is duped into a secret, unsanctioned negotiation with the North Vietnamese and his actions come back to haunt him. Years later, Harry marries May, and she follows him through 30 years of global postings and ambassadorships, during which time Harry's early career idealism becomes cynical posturing. And although he loves his wife, he cannot forget Sieglinde. In his work, he struggles to justify American interference in other countries' affairs, while in his personal life, he is torn between his feelings for the two women. Only after he retires does Harry finally understand something about his life. Just's clever plot reveals a man conflicted by duty and loyalty, adroitly playing the State Department career game, but always wondering what might have happened if he had just made one or two different choices in his life. It's also a fascinating portrayal of American embassy operations and the treacherous shoals of international diplomacy and duplicity.
