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“Tropical heat ripples off these pages: Samantha Gillison depicts New Guinea and its indigenous people in lush, rare, passionate language. She sympathetically animates American characters no less exotic, including a troubled young anthropologist and his oil-rich family. The King of America takes us on a stirring journey to a distant land–and whose exploration leads us to the heart of human folly.”
–Ken Kalfus, author of The Commissariat of Enlightenment

“In this extraordinarly beautiful and atmospheric novel, Samantha Gillison once again displays her tremendous gifts for characterising both people and places. The King of America is an utterly absorbing portrait of both.”
–Margot Livesey
"From its compelling opening to its unexpected, radiantly beautiful final scenes, this is an extraordinary novel."
–Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever, winner of the National Book Award

“This wonderful novel is set in two vastly different worlds: the America of wealth and exceptional privilege, and primitive New Guinea, where life is lived as it was a thousand years ago. At once lush and spare, The King of America is the story of a young man's desperate journey–away from his tormented relations with those closest to him and toward a truly known self–and it reminds us, exquisitely, of the pain and beauty contained in our deepest feelings for each other.”
–Ann Packer, bestselling author of The Dive From Clausen’s Pier

“In this taut, tragic, exquisitely written book, a young American journeys to a distant world which shelters him from the barbarous gentility of home. An engrossing meditation on privilege and its discontents, The King of America is a magnificent achievement.”
–Jhumpa Lahiri

"Brooding, lyrical, and thoughtful...."

Kirkus, 12/15/2003

"THE KING OF AMERICA does a wonderful job of delineating its hero's adventures in New Guinea, conjuring that land's heat and light and beauty, while chronicling Stephen's emotional response to that far-off place....The novel is also chockablock with ideas: about the admiring but voyeuristic fascination that anthropologists and art collectors have toward primitive societies; about the class system and its fallout on friendships, marriages and professional associations; about the relationships between fathers and sons; about the dynamic between America and the undeveloped world."

Michiko Kakutani, New York Times Book Review, 04/13/2004

The King of America: A Novel: Search Results