A Good Man in Africa (44 page)

ALSO BY
W
ILLIAM
B
OYD

“
There’s hardly a writer around whose work offers more pleasure and satisfaction.
”—The Washington Post

ARMADILLO

To his colleagues, Lorimer Black, the mild-mannered insurance adjuster, is known as the guy who has it all: the sleek suits, the enviable status. But when Lorimer arrives at a business appointment and finds his client hanging from a pipe, his life spirals out of control. His car is blowtorched after he investigates a fire at a luxury hotel. He becomes the fall guy of a colleague who puts the company in the red and the victim of a vicious attack by the possessive husband of a mysterious actress. As Lorimer becomes entangled in a conspiracy that involves everyone he knows, his own past comes to light.

Fiction/Literature/0-375-70216-4

THE BLUE AFTERNOON

This lushly atmospheric novel opens in Los Angeles in 1936, when architect Kay Fischer is approached by an elderly man named Salvador Carriscant, who claims to be her father—and who insists that she accompany him to Lisbon in a search of the great lost love of his life. En route to Portugal, Carriscant, a former surgeon in the war-torn Philippines, tells Kay the story behind her secret parentage. Set against the sultry blue afternoons of Manila in 1902, his is a tale of grisly murders, ghastly medical rivalries, and an illicit passion that will consume Carriscant’s life and his daughter’s imagination.

Fiction/Literature/0-679-77260-X

THE DESTINY OF NATHALIE X
AND OTHER STORIES

With these eleven startling, exotic, and deliciously inventive new stories, Boyd charts the euphoria of love, the anguish of loss, and the gnawings of ambition across several countries and the expanse of the twentieth century. From a tourist who returns to his hotel room to find a countess amorously awaiting him, to a couple who meet once a year in Lisbon to indulge in erotic delirium, Boyd’s characters are unforgettable. Shimmering with meaning,
The Destiny of Nathalie X
compels us to consider how we thread our experience into narrative.

Fiction/Literature/0-679-76784-3

AN ICE-CREAM WAR

In 1914, in a hotel room in German East Africa, American farmer Walter Smith dreams of Theodore Roosevelt. As he sleeps, a railway passenger swats at flies, regretting her decision to return to the Dark Continent and to her husband. On a faraway English riverbank, a jealous Felix Cobb watches his brother swim, and curses his sister-in-law-to-be. And in the background of the world’s daily chatter swirl rumors of an Anglo-German conflict, the likes of which no one has ever seen. As the sons of the world match wits and weapons on a continent thousands of miles from home, desperation makes bedfellows of enemies and traitors of friends and family.

Fiction/Literature/0-375-70502-3

THE NEW CONFESSIONS

In this extraordinary novel, William Boyd presents the autobiography of John James Todd. From his birth in 1899, Todd was doomed. Emerging from his angst-filled childhood, he rushes into the throes of the twentieth century on the Western Front during the Great War, and quickly changes his role on the battlefield from cannon fodder to cameraman. When he becomes a prisoner of war, he discovers Rousseau’s
Confessions
, and dedicates his life to bringing the memoir to the silver screen. Plagued by bad luck and blind ambition, Todd becomes a celebrated London upstart, a Weimar luminary, and finally a disgruntled director of cowboy movies and the eleventh member of the Hollywood Ten. Ambitious and entertaining, Boyd has invented a most irresistible hero.

Fiction/Literature/0-375-70503-1

ON THE YANKEE STATION

These fifteen beguiling stories are populated by unlikely heroes who, desperate to redeem their unsatisfying lives, turn to fantasy as their sole escape from life’s inequities. Stranded in an African hotel during a coup, an oafish Englishman impresses a stewardess with tales of an enchanted life completely at odds with his sordid existence. In “Hardly Ever,” a Scottish boy impresses his friends by recounting with prurient elaboration his awkward courtship of a local girl. In the title story, a sadistic American pilot in Vietnam underestimates the power of revenge when he relentlessly persecutes a member of his maintenance crew. Endowed with mordant humor and rare compassion, Boyd’s first collection of short stories is storytelling at its best.

Fiction/Literature/0-375-70511-2

STARS AND BARS

A recent arrival to Manhattan, Englishman Henderson Dores believes the move has given him a new lease on life. With a plum position as a fine art assessor and a chance to reconcile with his ex-wife, Dores is eager to trade his British reserve for the impulsive nature of Americans. But when Loomis Gage, an eccentric millionaire, invites him to Georgia to appraise his small collection of Impressionist paintings, Dores’s plans take an abrupt turn. Stranded at a remote mansion after his car wheels mysteriously disappear, Dores is received by the bizarre Gage family with nausea-inducing food, dubious information, and ludicrous death threats. Sharply observed and brilliantly plotted,
Stars and Bars
is an uproarious portrait of culture clash deep in the heart of the American south.

Fiction/Literature/0-375-70501-5

VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL
Available at your local bookstore, or call toll-free to order:
1-800-793-2665 (credit cards only).

“
Any Human Heart
 … stands up as one of [Boyd’s] most enjoyable novels to date: generous, witty and sneakily profound.”
—Evening Standard

Any
Human
Heart

A novel

BY WILLIAM BOYD

From the acclaimed author of
Armadillo
and
The Blue Afternoon
(“pitch-perfect”—
New York Times
), a new novel that invokes the tumult, events, and iconic faces of our time as it tells the story of Logan Mountstuart—writer, spy, and man of the world—through his intimate journal.

Available in February 2003 in hardcover from Knopf.
$26.00
• 0-375-41493-2

Please visit
www.aaknopf.com

Also by William Boyd
available in paperback from Vintage:

Armadillo • 0-375-70216-4
The Blue Afternoon • 0-679-77260-X
The Destiny of Nathalie X • 0-679-76784-3
A Good Man in Africa • 1-4000-3002-1
An Ice Cream War • 0-375-70502-3
The New Confessions • 0-375-70503-1
On the Yankee Station • 0-375-70511-2
Stars and Bars • 0-375-70501-5