Andorra: A Novel

by Peter Cameron

Overview

For mysterious reasons, a man forsakes his American life and arrives in a strange country called Andorra. He settles into the grand—and only—hotel in its seaside capital, and gradually makes the aquaintance of this tiny city's most prominent residents: the ancient Mrs. Reinhardt, who has a lifetime lease on the penthouse in the hotel; Sophonsobia Quay, the kayaking matriarch of an Andorran dynasty; and the Ricky Dents, an Australian couple who share a first name, a gigantic dog, and a volatile secret. As the stranger reveals himself to his new friends, and becomes entangled in their lives, the mystery of his own origin deepens. What is he hiding, and why? And when a mutilated dead body appears in the harbor, everyone is a suspect, including our narrator. Part thriller, part comedy of manners, part surrealistic dream, Andorra is "a work of remarkable and sustained invention and imagination . . . a nearly perfect book" (Robert Drake, The Philadelphia Inquirer).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312428716
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	04/27/2009
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Peter Cameron is the author of Andorra, The City of Your Final Destination, and Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Grand Street, and The Paris Review. He lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

This marvelous mood piece about lying and truth telling, escape and discovery, and the weird calm at the heart of desperation.” —The New Yorker

“Andorra does everything you want fiction to do—entertain, turn tricks, surge with unexpected feeling, send you transformed back into your life—but it does it with that delightfully un-American virtue, a light touch.” —John Weir, The Village Voice

“Wonderful . . . Like so many good novels, Andorra ends badly for the characters but well for the reader. Mr. Cameron steers us through the final, fantastical events of Alex's story with an unfaltering hand.” —Margot Livesey, The New York Times Book Review

“As eerily beautiful as it is laced with threat . . . Andorra is a revelation.” —Michael Upchurch, San Francisco Chronicle

“Controlled, precise, pellucid, Mr. Cameron's prose brilliantly transmits the moment-by-moment feel of his protagonist's sojourn in a country that finally does not allow him to escape from himself.” —Merle Rubin, The Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher