{"product_id":"exiles-in-the-garden-9780547336015","title":"Exiles in the Garden","description":"\u003cstrong\u003e\"A master American novelist.\" --\u003cem\u003eVanity Fair\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"One of the most astute writers of American fiction\" (\u003cem\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/em\u003e) delivers the resonant story of Alec Malone, a senator's son who rejects the family business of politics for a career as a newspaper photographer. Alec and his Swiss wife, Lucia, settle in Georgetown next door to a couple whose émigré gatherings in their garden remind Lucia of all the things Americans are not. She leaves Alec as his career founders on his refusal of an assignment to cover the Vietnam War -- a slyly subversive fictional choice from Ward Just, who was himself a renowned war correspondent. At the center of the novel is Alec's unforeseen reckoning with Lucia's long-absent father, Andre Duran, a Czech living out the end of his life in a hostel called Goya House. Duran's career as an adventurer and antifascist commando is everything Alec's is not. The encounter forces Alec to confront just how different a life where things -- \"terrible things, terrible things\" -- happen is from a life where nothing much happens at all. \u003cbr\u003e Once again, \"Ward Just writes the kind of books they say no one writes anymore: smart, well-crafted narratives -- wise to the ways of the world -- that use fiction to show us how we live\" (Joseph Kanon, \u003cem\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/em\u003e).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJust, Ward:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - WARD JUST (1935-2019) was the author of nineteen novels, including\u003ci\u003e Exiles in the Garden, Forgetfulness, \u003c\/i\u003ethe National Book Award finalist \u003ci\u003eEcho House, A Dangerous Friend, \u003c\/i\u003e winner of the Cooper Prize for fiction from the Society of American Historians, and \u003ci\u003eAn Unfinished Season, \u003c\/i\u003ewinner of the \u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune \u003c\/i\u003eHeartland Award and a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize.","brand":"Houghton Mifflin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50325218165010,"sku":"9780547336015","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_7e9ace82-f15a-48ed-8a4d-c09ac5b533dd.jpg?v=1727683183","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/exiles-in-the-garden-9780547336015","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}