Strangers in a strange
land – an evocative phrase that originated in “Exodus” (the one by Moses, not
Leon Uris) and has echoed within my own life. As a diplomat, I lived nearly
fourteen years overseas and know the particular dislocation of trying to make a
new life in a country not my own. This experience forms the center of my four
published novels. It’s also the theme of The Hero’s Journey a story at the
heart of every culture; the hero sets off toward unknown lands and comes back
transformed, as did I. Here’s my list of the five greatest novels about
strangers in a strange land.
Talk about strangers in a strange land. Robert Knox—diplomat, reformed alcoholic, unreformed gambler, and terminal smartass—finds himself at the ends of the earth, and of his career, on the strange and spirit-ridden island of Madagascar. Here, the implausible is not only possible, it is mandatory. In this novel of romance and intrigue, Knox soon finds himself under threat of disgrace and murder even as he seeks love and redemption.
“Le Carre fans won’t want to miss this one.” – Starred review from Publishers Weekly. Nominated as Book of the Year in fiction by Forward Review.
Another Pulitzer Prize winner, Middlesex deals with two types of strangers.
First, we follow a Greek family fleeing the horror and death of the 1920-22 Turkish-Greek war, eventually coming to the United States as immigrants. Second, a descendent of the family, variously known as Cal or Callie, is born intersex, with physical characteristics of both sexes.
Frankly, I had sort of avoided the book, fearing a tedious diatribe on suffering and intolerance. Imagine my surprise to find a story told with a delightfully light touch and great humor – and all the more touching because of it.
'I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974.'
So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and her truly unique family secret, born on the slopes of Mount Olympus and passed on through three generations.
Growing up in 70s Michigan, Calliope's special inheritance will turn her into Cal, the narrator of this intersex, inter-generational epic of immigrant life in 20th century America.
Middlesex won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
It’s not simply because I’m of a generation still haunted by the war in Vietnam that I was pulled into this story of an immigrant – half-French, half-Vietnamese, and altogether screwed up – torn between his new and old identities.
Full of intrigue and suspense, the book is a great character study of a man who cannot figure out where his loyalties lie or who it is he is betraying. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong. The Sympathizer is the story of this captain:…
Whatever the allegations of fraud and plagiarism against Kosinski, Being There remains a great satirical novel about a man thrown out into the modern world after a life of total isolation.
In this brief, funny book, Chance, a gardener totally innocent of the world and its ways, becomes an influential political figure, seen as a brilliant oracle based on wild misinterpretations of his simple observations about gardening, the only reality he knows. I worked in politics for years and see some truth behind the laughs.
The hero of this astonishing novel is called Chance - he may be the man of tomorrow. Flung into the real world when his rich benefactor dies, Chance is helped on his life journey by Elizabeth Eve, the young, beautiful, resourceful wife of a dying Wall Street mogul. Accidentally launched into a world of sex, money, power - and national television - he becomes a media superstar, a household name, the man of the hour - and, who knows, perhaps the next President of the United States of America.
I remember as a kid enjoying the movie based on the book.
Though fiction, the tale is inspired by the experiences of many whites captured by American Indians and raised among them. In this short, well-paced novel, True Boy, a captive of the Lenape tribe since age four, is forcibly returned to his white family. He soon yearns to return to the freedom he knew with the Lenape.
I was raised on Westerns and developed a fascination with American Indians that this story addresses well. A fine novel about those who are fated to be strangers wherever they go.
A beautifully illustrated edition of a novel that has enthralled young American readers for generations. It is the story of John Cameron Butler-captured as a small child in a raid on the Pennsylvania frontier by the Indian tribe Lenni-Lenape. Adopted by the great warrior Cuyloga and renamed True Son, he has spent 11 years living and thinking of himself as fully Indian. But when the tribe signs a treaty that requires them to return their white captives, 15-year-old True Son is returned against his will to the family he had long forgotten, and to a life that he no longer…
I’m not a big sci-fi fan, but how can I make this list without including this title?
The book made quite an impact on me back in college and taught me that a good book in any genre is worth a read. The story centers on a human raised by Martians who comes to earth bringing disturbing insight into the human condition and the straight-jacket of accepted moral codes. He soon becomes a polarizing religious prophet.
Controversial when first published, it was the first sci-fi novel to crack the top ten of the New York Times bestseller list – and gave us the word grok as a term for deep understanding.
The original uncut edition of STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Hugo Award winner Robert A Heinlein - one of the most beloved, celebrated science-fiction novels of all time. Epic, ambitious and entertaining, STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND caused controversy and uproar when it was first published and is still topical and challenging today.
Twenty-five years ago, the first manned mission to Mars was lost, and all hands presumed dead. But someone survived...
Born on the doomed spaceship and raised by the Martians who saved his life, Valentine Michael Smith has never seen a human being until the day a…
Two women, a century apart, seek to rebuild their lives after leaving their homelands. Arriving in tropical Singapore, they find romance, but also find they haven’t left behind the dangers that caused them to flee.
Haunted by the specter of terrorism after 9/11, Aislinn Givens leaves her New York career and joins her husband in Southeast Asia when he takes a job there. She acquires several paintings by a colonial-era British artist that she believes are a warning.
The artist, Elizabeth Pennington, tells her own tumultuous story through diary entries that end when World War I reaches the colony with catastrophic results. In the present, Aislinn and her husband learn that terrorism takes many shapes when they are ensnared by local political upheaval and corruption.
"Aislinn Givens leaves a settled life in Manhattan for an unsettled life in Singapore. That painting radiates mystery and longing. So does Clifford Garstang's vivid and simmering novel, The Last Bird of Paradise." –John Dalton, author of Heaven Lake and The Inverted Forest
Two women, nearly a century apart, seek to rebuild their lives when they reluctantly leave their homelands. Arriving in Singapore, they find romance in a tropical paradise, but also find they haven't left behind the dangers that caused them to flee.
In the aftermath of 9/11 and haunted by the specter of terrorism, Aislinn Givens leaves her…
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