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Parrot and Olivier in America

Parrot and Olivier in America

by PeterCarey (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2010

    $3.31

  • Used

    Hardcover 2010

    $3.31
Synopsis

Parrot and Olivier in America has been shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. From the two-time Booker Prize-winning author comes an irrepressibly funny new novel set in early nineteenth-century America. Olivier--an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville--is the traumatized child of aristocratic survivors of the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerant English printer. They are born on different sides of history, but their lives will be connected by an enigmatic one-armed marquis. When Olivier sets sail for the nascent United States--ostensibly to make a study of the penal system, but more precisely to save his neck from one more revolution--Parrot will be there, too: as spy for the marquis, and as protector, foe, and foil for Olivier. As the narrative shifts between the perspectives of Parrot and Olivier, between their picaresque adventures apart and together--in love and politics, prisons and finance, homelands and brave new lands--a most unlikely friendship begins to take hold. And with their story, Peter Carey explores the experiment of American democracy with dazzling inventiveness and with all the richness and surprise of characterization, imagery, and language that we have come to expect from this superlative writer.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 451
 Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 04 Feb 2010
ISBN 10: 057125330X
ISBN 13: 9780571253302

Media Reviews
Carey has twice won the Man Booker Prize and by all rights should be nominated for a third for Parrot and Olivier in America, a novel as big and bold as the country itself. This work showcases Carey at his finest, bringing together all his considerable strengths and obsessions . . . Carey [is] a sheer magician with language . . . He delivers a riot of unexpected plot twists and pleasures . . . An utter tour de force . . . Columbus might have discovered America, but with this new novel, Carey gives us the thrill of discovering his adopted home--our adopted home--all over again. -- Miami Herald Another feat of acrobatic ventriloquism, joining Carey's masterpieces, Jack Maggs and True History of the Kelly Gang . . . Carey's most marvelous invention is Tocqueville's traveling companion, Parrot . . . It's a brilliant alteration of history and a source of rich comedy . . . Outrageous and witty. --Ron Charles, Washington Post Parrot and Olivier is amusing and wise and graceful to a degree that we almost don't deserve. --Laura Miller, Salon Peter Carey re-imagines Alexis de Tocqueville's American journey with a verve that is nothing short of captivating. Parrot and Olivier is a rollicking debate about America and its opportunities, its society and class distinctions. Carey's characters and landscapes breathe, resulting in a work that one hates to see come to an end . . . It is one timely work of historical fiction. -- Denver Post Carey is as various, often as brilliant, and always as irreverent as they come . . . Mischievous but with a serious underlay. -- Richard Eder, Boston Globe Carey braids his story carefully, lovingly. It has all his telltale favorite elements--lawlessness, revolution, hope for the future, men driven by passion. At its heart, Parrot and Olivier is a western; the simplest story in history, sculpted down to a twinkle in a philosopher's eye: Man's search for free
Author Bio
Peter Carey is the author of ten previous novels and has twice received the Booker Prize. His other honors include the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Born in Australia, he has lived in New York City for twenty years.