Parrot and Olivier in America
By: Peter Carey
Edition: Vintage Canada ed., 2011.
Publisher: Vintage Canada
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Toronto
Language: eng
Number of pages: 381
ISBN-13: 9780307358356
Copyright date: 2010
Subjects: French; Fiction; History; Description and travel; Travel
Description: "Olivier is a young aristocrat, one of an endangered species born in France just after the Revolution. Parrot, the son of an itinerant English printer, wanted to be an artist but has ended up in middle age as a servant. When Olivier sets sail for the New World - ostensibly to study its prisons, but in reality to avoid yet another revolution - Parrot is sent with him, as spy, protector, foe and foil. Through their adventures with women and money, incarceration and democracy, writing and painting, they make an unlikely pair. But where better for unlikely things to flourish than in the glorious, brand-new experiment, America? A dazzlingly inventive reimagining of Alexis de Tocqueville's famous journey, Parrot and Olivier in America brilliantly evokes the Old World colliding with the New. Above all, it is a wildly funny, tender portrait of two men who come to form an almost impossible friendship, and a completely improbable work of art"--Publisher description.
Notes: "Also available as an e-book"--Cover p. [4].