Review Preview: ‘The New Republic’ by Lionel Shriver

I am supposed to have a review up today of The New Republic by Lionel Shriver for a post with TLC Book Tours. But I haven’t quite finished the book yet… It’s been an unexpectedly hectic week at work which has eaten up all of the reading time I thought I’d have this week. I hate when that happens.

I think I’ll finish the book today and have a review up by tonight, so this is mostly a placeholder until then. As a preview, here’s a summary of the book:

Edgar Kellogg has always yearned to be popular. When he leaves his lucrative law career for a foreign correspondent post in a Portuguese backwater with a homegrown terrorist movement, Edgar recognizes Barrington Saddler, the disappeared reporter he’s replacing, as the larger-than-life character he longs to emulate. Yet all is not as it appears. Os Soldados Ousados de Barba — “The Daring Soldiers of Barba” — have been blowing up the rest of the world for years in order to win independence for a province so dismal and backward that you couldn’t give the rathole away. So why, with Barrington vanished, do incidents claimed by the “SOB” suddenly dry up? A droll, playful novel, The New Republic addresses terrorism with a deft, tongue-in-cheek touch while also pressing a more intimate question: What makes particular people so magnetic, while the rest of us inspire a shrug?

Thanks for your patience!