Parrot and Olivier in America

Name: Parrot and Olivier in America
Brand: Blackstone Audiobooks
Availability: InStock
Author: Peter Carey
ISBN: 9781441729804

Author: Peter Carey

Narrator: Humphrey Bower

Unabridged: 17 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.; 2009 by Bolinda Publishing Proprietary Limited;

Published: 04/20/2010

Categories: Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

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. Born on different sides of history, their lives will be joined by an enigmatic onearmed 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 Parrot and Oliviertheir adventures in love and politics, prisons and finance, homelands and brave new landsa most unlikely friendship begins to take hold. And with their story, Peter Carey explores the adventure of American democracy with dazzling inventiveness.

About Peter Carey

Peter Carey is the author of nine novels, including the Booker Prize-winning Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly Gang. Born in Australia in 1943, he now lives in New York City.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Vit

Usually I connect with a book easily, even with the complex one, but somehow I couldn’t connect with Parrot and Olivier in America almost till the end so it was going rather slowly for me. There are two main characters – two absolute opposites – a French idealistic aristocrat and an English declassed......more

Goodreads review by Fabian

Whimsical & epic, occurring in a place so magical but which really truly existed. There are forgeries & revolutions, dynamics of brotherhood which bring to mind Chabon's "Kavalier and Clay", and a style and tone which reminds me, at its zenith, of Ackroyd's "Hawksmoor." But it truly is demanding upon......more

Goodreads review by Clif

This book is a creative reimagining of Alexis de Tocqueville's tour of America in the early 1830's during the presidency of Andrew Jackson. The story's time and place parallels much of history. However the choice of characters has been fictionalized and scrambled in order to heighten the contrast of......more