Ward Just knows his way around a novel--18 of them now, including finalists for both a Pulitzer (An Unfinished Season) and a National Book Award (Echo House). American Romantic follows Harry Sanders, who works his way through government pay grades: a midlevel embassy diplomat in prewar Saigon; then ambassador assignments in a half dozen embassies around the world; and, finally, a comfortable retirement in the south of France. He has an intense love affair with Sieglinde, a German medical aide in Saigon; permanently scars his feet in a covert Vietnam intelligence-gathering mission; marries May, daughter of a hardscrabble Vermont family; and visits his politically well-connected centenarian father as often as he can.
In short, Harry is a career government servant, albeit one whose path touches the world's high and mighty as well as its weak and helpless. The disillusioned Sieglinde describes young Harry in his Vietnam role as an "American romantic... you love the war," while he more soberly sees himself as "a witness to events I didn't understand and would never understand." To May, who accompanied him in his 40-year career, "Harry was cheerful, an optimist, good-humored and determined to make the best of things."
The title of Just's extraordinary 1979 short story collection Honor, Power, Riches, Fame, and the Love of Women might as easily apply to his new novel. His work explores the fragile connections between the personal and the professional, the role of fate in affairs of State and the burden of living a meaningful life with some measure of personal contentment. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.