Parrot and Olivier in America

Starred review from November 9, 2009
The eminently talented Carey (Theft
) has the gift of engaging ventriloquism, and having already channeled the voices of Dickens’s Jack Maggs and the Australian folk hero/master thief Ned Kelly, he now inhabits Olivier-Jean-Baptist de Clarel de Barfleur, a fictionalized version of Alexis de Tocqueville, whose noble parents are aghast at his involvement in the events surrounding Napoleon’s return and the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X. To remove him from danger, they send him to America, where priggish snob Olivier inspires Carey’s humor during his self-centered adventures in New York, New England, and Philadelphia. Olivier can’t shake his aristocratic disdain of raw-mannered, money-obsessed Americans—until he falls for a Connecticut beauty. More lovable is Parrot, aka John Larrit, who survives Australia’s penal colony only to be pressed into traveling with Olivier as servant and secret spy for Olivier’s mother. Though their relationship begins in mutual hatred, it evolves into affectionate comradeship as they experience the alien social and cultural milieus of the New World. Richly atmospheric, this wonderful novel is picaresque and Dickensian, with humor and insight injected into an accurately rendered period of French and American history.

June 28, 2010
Carey's fictionalization of Alexis de Tocqueville's trip to America that inspired Tocqueville's study Democracy in America makes for lively listening. As the arrogant Olivier-Jean-Baptiste de Clarel de Barfleur de Garmont—a nobleman (and Tocqueville stand-in) sent abroad by his parents who are scandalized by his political involvement—and Parrot, his Australian manservant (and a secret spy), arrive in the New World, Humphrey Bower dexterously juggles American, British, and French accents and keeps each characters distinct and multidimensional. He glides Parrot and Olivier's wild mood and opinion swings and makes romantic passages light and moving. A Knopf hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 9).