The Ambassador's Son (Josh Thurlow Novels)

The Ambassador's Son (Josh Thurlow Novels)
Average customer rating:

More! More!

Enjoyable Read - Suspension of Disbelief Required, However

Stayed up all night reading

If you believe this story, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you...

ncoutlander

The Ambassador's Son (Josh Thurlow Novels)
Homer Hickam
Manufacturer: Thomas Dunne Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Thrillers | Mysteries & Thrillers | Bargain Books | Stores | Books
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The Keeper's Son (Josh Thurlow Novels)

The Far Reaches: A Novel

Torpedo Junction: U-Boat War Off America's East Coast 1942

Back to the Moon: A Novel

Sky of Stone: A Memoir

ASIN: B000KHXC7G
Release Date: 2005-02-24

Customer Reviews:

More! More!.......2007-02-20

Absolute page turner, both in the historical speculation and the twisting and turning adventure plot.

Enjoyable Read - Suspension of Disbelief Required, However.......2006-12-20

I read and thoroughly enjoyed Hickman's previous Josh Thurlow book, "The Keeper's Son." (By all means, read it first.) I was looking forward to the sequel. This one is not quite as good as the first book, but enough action to keep the pages turning. If possible, I'd give it 4 1/2 stars.

I do have to say that I did have to suspend disbelief on several occasions as Hickman tried too hard to work two famous real life characters into the book. We spend a lot of time with John F. Kennedy, who joins Thurlow's crew after PT-109 is sunk. And Richard Nixon makes a couple of appearances as well. It's true that they both served in the Armed Forces in the Pacific Theater during World War II, but the story would have worked just as well without them. If you can overlook this stretch, and liked "The Keeper's Son," this book will not disappoint.

Stayed up all night reading.......2006-08-11

Our reading group picked The Ambassador's Son and nearly everybody really liked it, although there was some griping before they read it. This is a great adventure novel with some thoughtful insights on the human condition. Considering Hickam's other books, we should not have been surprised at its quality but we were. Most of us thought oh no, it's a war novel and we didn't want to read that. But the characters are great, there's lots of romance in it, and Hickam's research shines through. I think I came to know the real Jack Kennedy as he was as a young man through this novel. Sometimes fiction reveals the truth better than non! Of course, I enjoyed The Keeper's Son so following Josh Thurlow on his next adventure was great. And Penelope, Josh's new girl, is a true delight. A real woman we all enjoyed talking about! This is a well-written novel, ten times better than most of the best sellers out there, and we thanked the person in our group for picking it, making a lot of us read something we might otherwise have missed.

If you believe this story, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you..........2006-08-11

This was perhaps the most contrived and ridiculous story I have read in many years. I enjoyed the Keeper's Son and October Sky, but this book was truly horrendous. Imagine, Jack Kennedy and Richard Nixon and James Michener and all the characters from Keeper's Son all in one place! Plus cannibals and naked native girls. The only character missing was Elvis.

ncoutlander.......2006-01-18

I guess like previous readers of the Keeper's son I didn't know what to expect. I just knew I looked forward to reading about Josh Thurlow's new adventure. The first 50 pages were hard to get through, but the table has to be set sometimes, before the main course can be served. I would recommend that one read "The Keeper's son, in order to know more about Josh Thurlowe and crew. I did miss the characters of Killakeet, but came to really enjoy the new ones in " The Ambassador's Son". Pongo, Dave, Felicity and Penelope where a great additions. Even Nick, I must admit was a fascinating person and I'm a big Kennedy fan myself. I loved the portrayal of Shafty and the tragic story about Rosemary. Once Josh was given his mission, things really started to take off. Homer took us once again on a another wonderful and exciting adventure, giving us a history lesson along the way.

Average customer rating:

Dynamic Storytelling
Beautifully Drawn Characters, Evocative language
A Page-Turner Especially for Lovers of Spain
solid thriller

A Handful of Kings: A Novel
Mark Jacobs
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Thrillers | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0743245903

Book Description

With explosive tension and masterful suspense, A Handful of Kings is a page-turning thriller about what really happens in the world of espionage, by an insider who has lived it.

American diplomat Vicky Sorrell learns the hard way that all is fair in love -- and espionage. A Handful of Kings, the latest novel by prolific author and former foreign service officer Mark Jacobs, follows Vicky's fast-paced tour of duty -- one where she must decide who the bad guys are, who is lying, and who just might be telling the dangerous truth.

Vicky is changing her life. She is leaving the foreign service and her lover at the same time. But before she departs the U.S. embassy in Madrid for home, a well-known American writer shows up with a strange request. Vicky knows that what the writer wants from her is not necessarily what he is asking. But curiosity leads her to play along, and she is quickly drawn into the murky underground of terrorists and spies into which the writer himself has been reluctantly led. The track she takes is full of wrong turns. And at the end of the tunnel, it's not light she sees but an unspeakable threat to people she loves.

Recalling Graham Greene in The Comedians, Jacobs weaves an engrossing story that takes place over three continents and illuminates the unexpected ways people betray and defend one another and, ultimately, how they learn to love.

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"With explosive tension and masterful suspense, A Handful of Kings is a page-turning thriller about what really happens in the world of espionage, by an insider who has lived it. American diplomat Vicky Sorrell learns the hard way that all is fair in love -- and espionage. A Handful of Kings, the latest novel by prolific author and former foreign service officer Mark Jacobs, follows Vicky's fast-paced tour of duty -- one where she must decide who the bad guys are, who is lying, and who just might be telling the dangerous truth. Vicky is changing her life. She is leaving the foreign service and her lover at the same time. But before she departs the U.S. embassy in Madrid for home, a well-known American writer shows up with a strange request. Vicky knows that what the writer wants from her is not necessarily what he is asking. But curiosity leads her to play along, and she is quickly drawn into the murky underground of terrorists and spies into which the writer himself has been reluctantly led. The track she takes is full of wrong turns. And at the end of the tunnel, it's not light she sees but an unspeakable threat to people she loves. Recalling Graham Greene in The Comedians, Jacobs weaves an engrossing story that takes place over three continents and illuminates the unexpected ways people betray and defend one another and, ultimately, how they learn to love."

Customer Reviews:

Dynamic Storytelling.......2004-03-31

Not only is this a page-turning tale, but you could wander through many bookstore aisles before matching the quality and imaginative language found in "A Handful of Kings." My only criticism is that the driving impulse to get on with the story was inhibited by the contradictory need to slow down and savor the robust writing. The settings and locales are authentic and convincing, . The carefully woven suspense-inducing strands of narrative eventually are drawn together in a startling climax. The world of international espionage bursts from the page in explosive colors. One might hope that Vicky would return in future works, with or without Jack and Wyatt. Whatever...just keep 'em coming.

Beautifully Drawn Characters, Evocative language.......2004-03-31

Mark Jacobs paints the disparate characters in this, his second and best novel, with the broad impressionistic brush strokes of a writer who loves language. When the players in this novel are thrown together by design or by fate and begin to ricochet off of each other with increasing speed, Jacobs' magical word pictures will recall for many readers the verbal mastery of Graham Greene.
Jacobs depicts with the clarity of one who has been there, the inner conflict of the young female foreign service officer, who is fed up with government bureaucracy yet still drawn to the addictive drama of living as a stranger in a strange land.
The pathetic preening of Jack, the "famous" author calls to mind a number of Greene's most vulnerable and flawed characters.
The plot moves slowly at the outset as the characters are drawn and given their places on a broad international stage. The pace picks up quickly, however, as this thoughtful character driven novel morphs into a page turning spy thriller, without ever sacrificing the beautiful language that is the hallmark of this talented author.

A Page-Turner Especially for Lovers of Spain.......2004-03-28

In A Handful of Kings, Mark Jacobs combines a taut thriller plot with a love story, and fleshes it out with a wealth of detail about Spain and the American Foreign Service. I was engaged by the three-dimensional characters and caught up in the action as the story unfolded.

Living in Madrid, I was doubly delighted to see this city feature so prominently in the novel (even though the action takes place also in Colombia and the United States). As Jacobs writes about an encounter in Madrid's El Retiro Park, for example, I could picture the scene vividly in my mind. He also does a great job of capturing the intangible things that make Madrid Madrid, even down to the Ducados cigarette smoke filling up one's favorite Spanish bar. Jacobs, who was a former Foreign Service Officer, does a wonderful job of opening a window onto the environment of a U.S. embassy and the people who run it for the general reader.

solid thriller.......2004-02-02

Thirty-three years old Vicky Sorrel, disenchanted with the State department, believes it is time to start over. She plans to quit her job as a cultural attaché assigned to the American Embassy in Spain. Vicky also informs her lover Wyatt Willis that she is leaving him behind. When it comes to her job, everyone wishes her the best. When it comes to her lover, he puts on a public show accusing her of betrayal to their eternal love.

Easily ignoring Wyatt, who added layers of skepticism to the cynical Vicky, she continues to shut down her life in Spain until her plans are disrupted when popular American author Jack Baines asks for help. The Columbia rebel Badger, in an attempt to embarrass the United States, has kidnapped Jack's nephew. Vicky has doubts about Jack's story, but agrees to help him, not realizing what she is getting into.

Though exciting as a thriller and insightful in terms of Spain and embassy life overseas, A HANDFUL OF KINGS seems a bit short of royalty. The story line moves quickly and the Foreign Service is interesting to watch in action. Vicky is a former optimist, a believer in the American way, but her work has converted her into a delightful doubting Thomasina. The weak link to an otherwise fine tale is Jack, who at times acts like a lone STONE COWBOY and just seems no where near Vicky's level. Still Mark Jacobs provides a solid thriller with a shot of romance that will please suspense fans wondering what is really going on.

Harriet Klausner

The American Ambassador: A Novel
Average customer rating:

Bring some history to this book

Darkness Visible

Interesting and dark

Worth reading, if you can find a copy.

Too many off key notes

The American Ambassador: A Novel
Ward Just
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue | Thrillers | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0618340785

Book Description

The American Ambassador is at once a riveting tale of suspense and a thoughtful meditation on the fragility of Western values in an age of terrorism. William North is a Foreign Service officer who fiercely loves his family and his country. His son, brilliant and thoroughly disaffected, sees his father as the embodiment of all that is corrupt in Western democracies. When the younger North aligns himself with a German terrorist organization, the conflict between father and son escalates to a matter of national security. In this breathtaking novel, Ward Just takes us inside the mind of a terrorist, revealing the eerie logic at work there.

Customer Reviews:

Bring some history to this book.......2006-10-26

So many novels are gone when you finish the last page. This one stays with you. Patricide is hardly a new theme, nor is the European terrorism of the 70s and 80s. Ward Just has written a story, and characters, who are indelible. One can write pages about the motivations and the psychic set of Bill Jr. and Gert. Are they mentally ill? is the society the illness? But this is a story that we have observed more than once. The list of terrorist actions in one of the other reviews should have been different--Aldo Moro, the German bankers and industrialists, the pathology of Bader-Meinhof and the Red Brigades. Thanks to those reviewers who mentioned other Ward Just novels. I'll get them.

Darkness Visible.......2006-01-21

This book is not as bad as the negative reviews here suggest, but this is not Ward Just at his best, either. Worth reading? Absolutely, if you are interested in the psychology of the Cold War. That's what this novel is about. The portrait of Bill North Sr. is beautifully drawn & that is what Just is really interested in here -- a diplomat in extremis -- but the depiction of North's son Bill Jr. is much more problematic. Perhaps all terrorist acts are without motive, but the son's pathological detachment remains unexplained. As I savor the aferglow of the novel, I would note that the figure who sticks with me is Ambassador North's wife, a painter married to a diplomat, a woman who will not be bullied.

If you have not read any of Just's novels, you might want to begin with A Dangerous Friend, which is about the early days of Vietnam & which is more successful, I think, in blending psychology & politics.

Interesting and dark.......2005-09-09

It's fiction after all, not intended to be fact specific. It's one of Just's best efforts. Ignore the other reviews, they missed the point. This is my third read of a Just novel and I liked it best. "The Translator" is a close second. Having visited Germany many times, I could visualize the settings depicited in the novel and Just's descriptions were right on target. The estranged relationship between parents and son is well presented and the story keeps one guessing at the outcome.

Worth reading, if you can find a copy........2002-10-21

I felt compelled to write when I read the other reviews. I think Just is getting a bad rap. The novel is interesting and creative, and full of poetic prose. I enjoyed the characters. There's the bright but somehow clueless Ambassador and his wife who have lived their lives of adventure, giving their son everything that they would have wanted. But their son, raised overseas (Germany, France and Congo, if I recall correctly) in a "sophistocated" globe-trotting world, rebels against it all. The novel portrays a fascinating dichotomy of a patriotic American father, and his son, who chooses to become a German terrorist.

Too many off key notes.......2002-09-17

This is a story about an American Ambassador, his wife and son. Where the son so obsessively hates his father as to plot his death. So hates Americans that he commits terrorist acts.

Considering the times in which this story occurs (mid to late 1980s) and all the recent terrorist acts having taken place,

1979: Hostages taken at the U.S. Embassy in Iran.
1983: U.S. Embassy bombed in Beirut, Lebanon. 63 dead, including 17 Americans.
1983: U.S. Marine barracks bombed in Lebanon. 241 American dead.
1983: U.S. Embassy bombed in Kuwait. Five dead.
1984: U.S. Embassy annex bombed in Aukar, Lebanon. 24 dead, including two Americans.
1984: Kuwait Airways Flight 221 hijacked. Two Americans murdered.
1985: TWA Flight 847 hijacked. One American murdered.
1985: Achille Lauro ocean liner hijacked. One American murdered.
1985: Attacks on Rome and Vienna airports. 20 dead, including five Americans.
1986: Bombing of La Belle discotheque in West Berlin. One American dead.
1988: Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. 270 dead.
1980-1992: Dozens of Americans and other Westerners kidnapped and murdered in the Middle East, mostly in Lebanon.

Amazon.com

The Ambassadors, which Henry James considered his best work, is the most exquisite refinement of his favorite theme: the collision of American innocence with European experience. This time, James recounts the continental journey of Louis Lambert Strether--a fiftysomething man of the world who has been dispatched abroad by a rich widow, Mrs. Newsome. His mission: to save her son Chadwick from the clutches of a wicked (i.e., European) woman, and to convince the prodigal to return to Woollett, Massachusetts. Instead, this all-American envoy finds Europe growing on him. Strether also becomes involved in a very Jamesian "relation" with the fascinating Miss Maria Gostrey, a fellow American and informal Sacajawea to her compatriots. Clearly Paris has "improved" Chad beyond recognition, and convincing him to return to the U.S. is going to be a very, very hard sell. Suspense, of course, is hardly James's stock-in-trade. But there is no more meticulous mapper of tone and atmosphere, nuance and implication. His hyper-refined characters are at their best in dialogue, particularly when they're exchanging morsels of gossip. Astute, funny, and relentlessly intelligent, James amply fulfills his own description of the novelist as a person upon whom nothing is lost. --Rhian Ellis

Book Description

This complex tale of self-discovery — considered by the author to be his best work — traces the path of an aging idealist, Lambert Strether. Arriving in Paris with the intention of persuading his young charge to abandon an obsession with a French woman and return home, Strether reaches unexpected conclusions.

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Chad Newsome has gone to Paris. He is charmed by Old World fascinations and caught up in the leisurely craft and bohemian direction of European worldliness. An older woman of rank and adventurous but subtle skill, Madame de Vionnet, strokes his ego and does her best to keep Chad in Paris indefinitely. Chad's mother lives in Woollett, Mass., and wants her son to return to run the family business. Mrs. Newsome is an invalid and cannot go to Paris to fetch her son herself, so she employs Lambert Strether and Sarah Pocock to return Chad to Massachusetts. Sarah has been to Paris before and is aware of its attractiveness, so her determination to succeed in this task is fixed and uncompromising. Strether is of later middle age, however, and inspired by the fairytale of a beautiful life in Europe. Mrs. Newsome has promised to marry Strether if he can bring Chad home. Strether is completely enamored by the Parisian character and its enchantments and has a difficult time completing his mission. The drama of reestablishing Chad in business in America and of coming to terms with the mythological romance of France leaves the reader unbalanced, trying to recover equilibrium in the real world. Those involved with Chad's rescue are compelled to recognize the deep intimacies of personal attachment and the accepted proprieties of direct consequence. The success and failures of such an undertaking are unpredictable. The result of every character's attempt to steer Chad rightly is a strange conglomeration of role reversal, fantasy, and truth. Please Note: This book is easy to read in true text, not scanned images that can sometimes be difficult to decipher. The Microsoft eBook has a contents page linked to the chapter headings for easy navigation. The Adobe eBook has bookmarks at chapter headings and is printable up to two full copies per year. Both versions are text searchable.

Customer Reviews:

The failure to enjoy.......2007-03-15

A wealthy US family sends its `ambassadors' to Paris in order to convince an heir to abandon the `life of a pagan' and return home to run the family business.
The theme of Henry James's impeccably written and extremely polished prose is what Nietzsche called the `right or the wrong conjugation': to live or to be lived. `One lives in fine as one can. Still, one has the illusion of freedom; therefore don't be like me, without the memory of that illusion. Don't at any rate miss things out of stupidity. Live!'

For Henry James, people lived in `the corruption of Europe' with its `femmes du monde'; people were lived in the US. It is the Catholic (live like God in France) against the Protestant ethic (`I seem to have a life only for other people').
We are far away here from the Calvinist lesson of `Daisy Miller' who died because she didn't respect the supreme respectability of her class.

The novel advances extremely slowly, is full of suggestions, hints, (mis)understandings and fluctuating feelings. Direct confrontations are subdued to the extreme, and end with a laugh.
The novel has another typical characteristic of James's stories: it's all about `thoroughbred' people, sublime members of the high society. They are presented in a superlative style: prodigious, exquisite, graceful, supreme, transcendent, precious, admirable, beautiful, bright, lovely, magnificent, splendid, brilliant, wonderful ...

With its essential message, this novel is a classic masterpiece.
Not to be missed.

The Ambassadors.......2007-01-19

This is surely one of the great works of literature. The style may seem at times slow going, but it rewards the patient reader with its rich, sensitive portrayal of characters and the varied effects of the old world charm of Paris on New England visitors. It is suspenseful thoughtful and brilliant in its depiction of social interactions.

Wrong cover.......2006-11-10

The book arrived in good condition, but it didn't have the beautiful red embossed hardcover that the website shows.

Great, but .......2006-08-20

The Ambassadors is a novel that unravels itself continuously and feels in many ways like a mystery, yet nothing in the novel occurs in the way of crime or even baseness. Every other great novel I've read has dealt, in one way or another, with some weighty issue or theme; I feel The Ambassadors does not. Despite this I found myself mesmerized by its intricacies, its perpetual ability to surprise; yet I also frequently asked myself whether I cared enough about its subject matter to continue. In the preface James tells the reader that it's about a man who, late in life, reflects on what he's missed in his youth, and the possibility of recapturing it. This man, the main character, is Strether, who has been sent to Paris to bring back to New England the son of a wealthy widow he hopes to marry; if he fails to do so, his engagement falls through and the son loses a large chunk of his inheritance. The mission is viewed somewhat as a rescue since the son is believed to be ensnared in the throes of either an unsuitable woman or a dissipate lifestyle, or both. Europe, and especially Paris, awakens latent feelings in the provincial Strether, and what he discovers in Paris turns out to be full of surprises for him. Beyond this, I don't think it matters much what the novel is about - it seems to me that the broader one outlines it, the less palatable it appears. The novel is very subtle, and definitely the most dense and tedious of any I have read. I find the characters to be so intelligent and flawless in their manners that they become intimidating, oppressively so. I don't care about the outcome for any of them because I feel they lack humanity. It's as if regular people did not figure into James's universe. However, I do feel that, in technical terms, it is the most perfect novel I have read, and therefore deserves to be ranked amount the greatest ever.

The Ambassadors: Worlds In Conflict & Readers In Conflict.......2006-08-15

If one were to choose just one novel from Henry James and say that this one is the quintessential example of a work that combines theme and style, one could do worse than to choose THE AMBASSADORS. James had a fascination with yanking Americans from their new world padded cells of insulation and transporting them to Europe, an old world that simply reeked of style and long held cultural givens. Lambert Strether is the ambassador of the title, an American who has grown up with typical American values, most of which relate to the Jamesian belief (often incorrect and exaggerated) that Americans were a breed of money mad social cretins who would not recognize class if they bumped into it. At the beginning of the novel, Strether is depicted as a basically good-hearted man who exists--but does not live--at least in the sense that he later comes to understand. It is he who is sent to London to retrieve a wayward Chad Newsome, a fellow American, son of the immensely wealthy Mrs. Newsome, who is eager for her son to return to America to take his rightful place as heir to the family fortune. In Europe, Strether is the fish out of water--at first. His job is to convert Chad or at least retrieve him from what Mrs. Newsome considers the clutches of a dissipated anti-Puritan and lascivious culture. But the conversion works in reverse. Lambert is affected by the openness of the European lifestyle, which compares refreshingly favorably to an American lifestyle that he now views as ponderous and stifling. He is further affected by a growing closeness with the target of his journey, Chad, a man that his mother assured Strether needed saving, but the only saving that Chad needs is to be saved from having to return to an America that will surely destroy Chad's new-found soul just as surely as it had stifled Strether's. Strether is finally affected by his relation with Mme. Marie de Vionnet, a lovely, elegant, and older European woman who is the girlfriend of Chad. This woman is another in a long line of Jamesian old-world icons of feminine exoticism who can seemingly float in mid air, so appealing is her capacity for infinite variety. Lambert concludes that she is RIGHT for Chad. Further, Europe is RIGHT for Chad, and finally, America is WRONG for Chad as well. By extension, Lambert learns the same lessons for himself. If he remains in Europe, he will suffer considerable sacrifice, not the least of which is that he has considered marrying Chad's mother, who suggests that at the successful conclusion to Lambert's journey, she will marry him, thus assuring him a share of her wealth. When Lambert delays in his mission, Mrs. Newsome sends yet another set of ambassadors, Chad's sister and her husband, both of whom prove invulnerable to the charms of Europe. Ironically, James shows that in the disreputable actions of the two in Europe (both engage in some tawdry behavior like drunken American sailors in a seedy Parisian saloon), that true class is a state of mind and not a function of where one hangs one's hat. At the end of the novel, James does not definitively wrap up all the loose ends. Presumably, Chad will eventually return to America--or perhaps not. Lambert will probably remain in Europe--or again perhaps not. Clearly, in THE AMBASSADORS, James leaves the door deliberately and ambiguously open, so that the resolution may need some unfolding after the words "the end."

Just as Henry James sets up a collision of cultural worlds in crisis, so does he do with a parallel collision of style in crisis. Many readers complain that James' style--ornate, ponderous, excessively prone to mutlti-pages of interminable dialogue--simply will not let them read a book that to them needs more plowing than reading. The problem here is that such readers have been taught to read conventional novels of slam-bang action, Hemingway-esque dialogue, and rapid pacing. In THE AMBASSADORS, James explores a different universe. His universe is the microverse, one is which most of the action is internalized. James wishes to unveil conscience and the intricacies of human dynamics. One might almost argue that the events in THE AMBASSADORS occur in real time. If it seems to take days to read, then perhaps that is the way that events occur in the fictional construct of any Jamesian novel. To read Henry James is to reread him as well. Just as human beings pause to use their memories of significant events to consider what to do for the future, so must the reader pause to reread passages to ponder past events. Thus, Henry James is one of the few authors (Proust is another) who has melded content to style. One does not read James merely to satisfy the requirements of a college class on the novel. One rereads James after the college class is over, and it is only then that one discovers the beauty of exploring the infinitely more beautiful world of the inner landscape over the outer.

Average customer rating:

I know this author
A stranger in a strange land
What a babe!
Mercury Monarch
A captivating, enriching, highly recommended read

Stealing the Ambassador : A Novel
Sameer Parekh
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Literature & Fiction | Bargain Books | Stores | Books
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ASIN: B0001PG3XM

Book Description

Stealing the Ambassador showcases an astonishing new talent that captures the clashing dynamics of family and cultures with a power that will remind readers of Zadie Smith's White Teeth and Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize-winning Interpreter of Maladies.

Twenty-three-year-old Rajiv Kothari is caught between two formidable men: a father who believed success and freedom could be found only in America and a grandfather who fought to guarantee such ideals in India, their homeland. As the stories of each generation unfold, Stealing the Ambassador illuminates the interplay between the forces of history and family ties. A beautifully rendered depiction of the immigrant experience, Stealing the Ambassador is also an unforgettable portrait of the tortured yet loving relationships between fathers and sons.

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Caught between a father who thought success and freedom could be found only in America and a grandfather who risked his life to guarantee such ideals in their homeland of India, twenty-three-year-old Rajiv Kothari is lost in a nation he has always called home and beckoned by the one his father left long ago. Stealing the Ambassador is a literary page-turner that blends the experiences of a first-generation Indian American with those of his immigrant father and revolutionary grandfather, their intertwined stories probing the balance between fiction and history, between old country and new, between fathers and sons. Following his father's sudden death, Rajiv finds himself alone and bewildered. As he attempts to reconstruct his father's life, he begins to better understand his own, and when he chances to meet a new Indian immigrant, eerily reminiscent of his own father, their uncanny interaction grants Rajiv insight into the euphoria that his father felt when he first arrived in the country and its gradual deterioration into frustrated estrangement. Events lead Rajiv to a reverse migration, back to the subcontinent of his father's birth. There he reconnects with his aged grandfather -- once a saboteur responsible for bombings in pre-Independence British India and now mysteriously destitute. Discovering the source of this impoverishment, Rajiv is awakened to a second understanding of his childhood hero, a reconsideration that illuminates the relationships between grandfather, father, and grandson while pointing to new definitions of bravery and familial loyalty. Stealing the Ambassador is a stunning debut from the young Sameer Parekh. In depicting the ways that families are at the source of both our frustration with and our loyalty to identity, Parekh sheds new light on the immigrant experience and on the complexity and power of family relations.

Customer Reviews:

I know this author.......2007-04-11

I personally know this author. We were friends in High School! Good ole Poughkeepsie. Where are you Sameer? It's Dr. Duc from Poughkeepsie Summer Scholars Program. Great book writing!!!!!!!!

A stranger in a strange land.......2003-06-17

A wonderful read! Full of information about India and the United States. The story is engrossing and makes you think about a lot of things that Americans take for granted.

What a babe!.......2003-06-05

This work is a fine example of the outstanding subtleties of an immigrants struggles with assimilation into an already homogeneous culture. His writing is topped only by his sweet baby face. Please Dr. Sameer, "may we have another!"

Mercury Monarch.......2003-06-04

My first car was a Mercury Monarch that I bought for $1000 in Grinnell, Iowa. That car was a gas-guzzling monster that became uncontrollable during every Iowa winter. But it was my first car, and it defined me in certain ways.

This book is a bit like that car for me. Consumes a lot of pages and gets unwieldy at times. But it captures truth. Truth about being an immigrant and about being an immigrant's son. About being Indian and American.

Don't read this expecting a masterpiece. And you'll probably turn the last page being glad that you read it.

A captivating, enriching, highly recommended read.......2003-04-16

Stealing The Ambassador by Sameer Parekh is an astutely written novel of family, clashing beliefs, and the eternal yearning for a happy and prosperous future. Rajiv Kothari is a young man whose father believes that success and freedom can only be truly enjoyed in America, while his grandfather believes in such ideals for their native India. The dynamic tension and interplay between generations is a crucial focus point in this captivating, enriching, highly recommended read.

The Ambassadors (Unwin Critical Library)

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The Ambassadors (Unwin Critical Library)
Alan W. Bellringer
Manufacturer: Unwin Hyman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

United States | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

British | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0048000264

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The Ambassadors. A Novel

Manufacturer: Harper & Brothers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000EZTZBG

Product Description

One of the author's sophisticated 'International' novels

Equivocal Endings in Classic American Novels: The Scarlet Letter; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Ambassadors; The Great Gatsby

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Equivocal Endings in Classic American Novels: The Scarlet Letter; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Ambassadors; The Great Gatsby
Joyce A. Rowe
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

British | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0521335329

Book Description

An original approach to four mainstream texts for the study of American literature and the novel in general. It examines the strangely equivocal nature of the vision with which each of them ends, with the central protagonists illogically clinging to their own transcendent image of selfhood.

Henry James and the Evolution of Consciousness: A Study of the Ambassadors

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Henry James and the Evolution of Consciousness: A Study of the Ambassadors
Courtney, Jr. Johnson
Manufacturer: Michigan State Univ Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

United States | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

British | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0870132458

Henry James's the Ambassador (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations)

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Henry James's the Ambassador (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations)
Harold Bloom
Manufacturer: Chelsea House Pub (L)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

Literary Criticism & Collections | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1555460062

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