Gorgeous East

by Robert Girardi

Book Overview

A sweeping tale of love and redemption, honor and war, Girardi's "Gorgeous East" follows three French Foreign Legionnaires of very different backgrounds from the cliffs of Mont Saint-Michel to Istanbul's ancient alleyways, from Parisian bars to the desolate Sahara.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312565860
• ISBN13: 9780312565862
• Release Date: October 2009
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 334 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

What a book should be

Robert Girardi has served up another wonderful read after a 10-year hiatus, and frankly, it was too long in the coming. Girardi, as always, proves he is a real writer, one whose imagination soars and creates amazingly rich worlds of characters, plot, and story that make his readers forget temporarily who they are. Gorgeous East is just such a book. Though I knew it would be a tough journey, I wanted to crawl inside the world painted so richly by Girardi and travel its sometimes romantic, sometimes dangerous, always intricate landscape without a map, a guide, or a traveling companion. I wanted to sit in his French cafes, feel his North African heat on my face, brace myself against the attacks of his marauding savages. And then put the book down and be safely back in my room. Only a master storyteller takes you there, fear and all. Girardi not only is a master story teller, but his characters seem to already be latently living in the back of my mind. Girardi simply gives them the voice and heart they would never have known had he not infused them with life. In short, Girardi's stories get inside you and stay there, leaving you well-fed and enriched. Read this book, heck, read all of Girardi's books. He's a gift of our time and should be enjoyed now so we can encourage him to open up his treasure chest of genius and extract even more literary riches from within.

A Genuine Masterpiece

Many years ago I stood beside Robert Girardi on the steps of the Iowa Memorial Union in Iowa City on a grey winter afternoon and we took our vows with the solemn declaration that we would set our hearts upon writing books that brought meaning to peoples' lives, books that stubbornly deprived this world of some of its indifference and it's loneliness, and though we would end up in the American gutter with no pension plan or money in the bank with all the other broken and glorious poets, we trusted in the true God of words and time, and believed that our lives would be redeemed by the sentences we left behind. Gorgeous East is a feast of luminous sentences which carry the reader into a deep and indelible understanding of love and loss. It will teach you everything there is to know about the exquisite glory and the horrible destruction men and women heap upon one another as they travel the gaudy boulevards of desire and the low lit alleyways of doubt. It is a modern masterpiece and the vindication of Girardi's vow. DJS

A well written page turner

Gorgeous East is a well written page turner that will leave you wanting more. The characters are well developed. All five senses are used equally to create a visceral experience. More importantly, the fabricated political story is set in the context of real history, so the feeling of authenticity reinforces the plot and the characters. Girardi's voice could be compared to Mark Helprin...he might be better. All in all a very good book.

Legion of Honor

Gorgeous East is a wide ranging adventure story filled with characters that should be despised by readers, but are likeable instead. The redeeming factor for these rogues is the company they keep, the French Foreign Legion. They come from all over the world, except France, with histories of criminal activity, drug and alcohol addiction, and general moral turpitude. But Robert Girardi describes their lives beautifully in sympathetic detail. The depraved backgrounds of the legionnaires have a common denominator, the conscious and unconscious desire for punishment and redemption. The very harsh training and discipline of the Legion allows the members to earn something they have never had, honor. Called upon by the French government and the United Nations to take up hopeless military causes, Legionnaires risk their lives only for their unit. The mercenaries identify the Legion as their country not the state ordering them to combat. The potentially grim story is filled with humor and references to art and music even when the characters are on the edge of death. This makes the novel entertaining and interesting for its three hundred plus pages. It is a wonderful work by Girardi. The violence in the book is outrageous and gratuitous putting the characters in an introspective dilemma. Are they degenerate absurd nihilists like the enemies they fight in the miserable Sahara, or is there some part of their antisocial lives that they can hold as worthwhile? The French Foreign Legion offers them a rugged sanctuary, but does it give them something to believe in? Ostensibly, there are no simple existential answers so many just drink and don't think. However, they do not turn into nihilists but rather embrace the illusion of the Legion, the shade of what they believe was once great. The Gorgeous East with its temptations, allures, gargoyles, and wild freedom is held in fee by their call in times of hopeless danger "a moi la Legion."

An Adventure Novel

It's a story about three men all of whom, sooner or later, join the French Foreign Legion. First there is Colonel de Noyer, a french aristocrat, who is slowly losing his mind. In the opening scene of the book, he saves his future wife from committing suicide and theirs become a great love story. Next there is the American actor and singer, John Smith, who loses the love of his life and in despair joins the French Foreign Legion. Finally there is Captain Pinard, a man who cannot escape his past and thinks of the Legion as his only family. These three men will go to war in the Sahara against an Islamic terrorist group. Two of three are taken hostage by the terrorists and the third one is sent to save them. Many things happen to the protagonists within the walls of their Legion and their going to war. You won't want to miss the adventures they have. The author takes you inside the three protagonists' hearts and minds. It is hard not to empathize with each one of them at their moments in the book. Their lives are more interconnected than their brotherhood in the Legion. They are each musicians and Girardi shows you how music plays a big part in each of their lives. They each fall in love with the same woman before the end of the book and they all are devoted to the French Foreign Legion. I highly recommend this book. It's a great read and moves very quickly.