I just finished reading this book and found that, while containing stories that did have dark aspects to them, the author told them in a rather humorous way. The book really isn't one whole long tale, but is a collection of little stories about the people and places that the narrator runs across in his globe hopping life as a writer. From dictators in foreign lands to his wealthy circle of friends, he finds incidents to write about that are both odd and sad yet at the same time quite funny. The stories take the reader from the homes of aristocrats in New York or Paris or London to meetings with dictators and exiled former dictators in places like Haiti or Madrid or Algeria. The narrator, who is never really identified except as a single American man who is a writer, describes the homes and offices, what the people look like, how they dress, what they eat....many small details that make the people seem like regular, albeit it moneyed, folk who just find themselves in unusual circumstances. Behind their rather ordinary personas, we learn that they have secret lovers, or engage in double-dealing, or have very strange habits , or are kind of amusingly wicked.
In an aside in the middle of the book, in a chapter called 'the narrator pauses to reflect', the narrator takes the opportunity to explain to the reader his role as narrator. Other chapters are 'conversations with dictators' (or in one case, 'chatting with a dictator's assassin') or stories of friends such as 'the cripple' or 'a victim of romance'.
After my initial puzzlement at the seemingly unrelated chapters when I first started reading, I soon settled in to the idea of the compact short stories. It was very handy to be able to complete a chapter or two in one sitting and not have to concern myself with remembering who and what I was reading about the next time I had a chance to pick up the book. I enjoyed reading this. I found it interesting and amusing. I'd look for other books by this author and would recommend this one.
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