November 1, 2013
This latest from Just, whose novels always have a profound sense of history and place, opens in the early days of the Vietnam conflict, "when the war was not quite a war.... Their army was called a guerrilla force. Our army was called a Military Assistance Command." After a secret meeting with insurgents goes awry, fledgling foreign service officer Harry Sanders finds himself back in Washington, DC, but not before he's instigated a short but decidedly heated affair with a German woman named Sieglinde. Even as he marries the charming May and takes her on a round of increasingly challenging assignments in Africa, Scandinavia, and the Mediterranean, Harry cannot forget his past love.
Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
March 1, 2014
Trust Just, a onetime journalist and author of nuanced political/historical fiction (e.g., the National Book Award finalist Echo House), to offer a sweeping view of late 20th-century U.S. diplomacy. He opens in early 1960s Indochina, when "their army was called a guerrilla force. Our army was called a Military Assistance Command," as eager young Harry Sanders fails at a secret outreach mission to the enemy. Recognized as perhaps too genteel for a business that's "not a straight-line affair"--he even chides himself tartly as "the ambitious one who thought that a negotiated settlement would end the war"--Harry gets more manageable postings over the next decades and marries sweet, naive May. Meanwhile, he recalls his affair with Sieglinde, a technician on a German hospital ship in Saigon's harbor who sails away despite her promises. She and Harry had a tense moment discussing German culpability during World War II, and her unfolding story seems like a digression until she muses, "Could nationality be destiny?" while declaring that "Americans can be anything." One wonders: Are can-do Yankees as shaped as anyone by historical forces, and did Vietnam (and beyond) prove that we can't do everything? VERDICT Highly recommended as a sharp, fluidly written book on what it means to be American; great for book clubs. [See Prepub Alert, 11/1/13.]--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.