Parrot and Olivier in America - Tapa blanda

Olivier is a French aristocrat, the traumatized child of survivors of the Revolution. Parrot the son of an itinerant printer who always wanted to be an artist but has ended up a servant. Born on different sides of history, their lives will be brought together by their travels in America. When Olivier sets sail for the New World, ostensibly to study its prisons but in reality to save his neck from one more revolution – Parrot is sent with him, as spy, protector, foe and foil. As the narrative shifts between the perspectives of Parrot and Olivier, and their picaresque travels together and apart – in love and politics, prisons and the world of art – Peter Carey explores the adventure of American democracy, in theory and in practice, with dazzling wit and inventiveness.

‘Fizzing with fictional panache ... Exhilarating.’ Sunday Times From the two-time Booker Prize-winning author, an irrepressibly funny portrait of the impossible friendship between a master and a servant. Olivier is a French aristocrat, the traumatised child of survivors of the Revolution; Parrot, an Englishman who always wanted to be an artist but has ended up a servant. Through their picaresque travels in the New World – in love and politics, prisons and the world of art – Peter Carey explores the adventure of American democracy with dazzling wit and inventiveness. ‘A comic masterpiece.’ New Yorker ‘I finished it with unabated enjoyment ... Dazzling.’ Guardian ‘A gripping portrait of Jacksonian America in all its wild variety.’ The Economist www.petercareybooks.com