While scenes of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq dominate today's news, this elegant novel provides an insight into an earlier attempt by America to install a democracy in a formerly totalitarian state that is undergoing a revolution. Sectarian violence, language problems, CIA and State Department goofs all contribute to the occasionally lovely but ultimately sad experiences of a well-meaning American professor who becomes intimately and tragically involved with a lovely woman and the deteriorating political scene.
"John Clark Pratt wrote one of the truly great Vietnam War novels, The Laotian Fragments, and now he has written a comparably great novel that resonates strongly into our present unsettled times. American Affairs is worldly wise and richly moody and absolutely compelling reading. Pratt is a worthy descendant of Graham Greene." --ROBERT OLEN BUTLER, novelist and Pulitzer Prizewinner.
"American Affairs is superb. It is a timeless tale of love and upheaval with tragic results. Having been an American Foreign Service Officer in Portugal, I can attest that John Pratt's graceful novel of the last Cold War struggle captures a poignant vignette of this century." --CRESCENCIO ARCOS, former US Ambassador and Regional Vice-President of International Affairs to South America.
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