New Republic

<p><strong>Shriver is an incisive social satirist with a clear grip on the ironies of our contemporary age . . . [Her] take on journalism and international politics is wry insightful and just over the top enough to be fun. --<em>Los Angeles Times</em></strong><br/></p><p><strong><em>New York Times </em>bestselling author Lionel Shriver probes the mystery of charisma in a razor-sharp novel that teases out the intimate relationship between terrorism and cults of personality explores what makes certain people so magnetic and reveals the deep frustrations of feeling overshadowed by a life-of-the-party who may not even be present</strong></p><p>Ostracized as a kid Edgar Kellogg has always yearned to be popular. A disgruntled New York corporate lawyer he's more than ready to leave his lucrative career for the excitement and uncertainty of journalism. When he's offered the post of foreign correspondent in a Portuguese backwater that has sprouted a homegrown terrorist movement Edgar recognizes the disappeared larger-than-life reporter he's been sent to replace Barrington Saddler as exactly the outsize character he longs to emulate. Infuriatingly all his fellow journalists cannot stop talking about their beloved Bear who is no longer lighting up their work lives.</p><p>Yet all is not as it appears. <em>Os Soldados Ousados de Barba</em>--The Daring Soldiers of Barba--have been blowing up the rest of the world for years in order to win independence for a province so dismal backward and windblown that you couldn't give the rat hole away. So why with Barrington vanished do terrorist incidents claimed by the SOB suddenly dry up?</p><p>A droll playful novel <em>The New Republic</em> addresses weighty issues like terrorism with the deft tongue-in-cheek touch that is vintage Shriver. It also presses the more intimate question: What makes particular people so magnetic while the rest of us inspire a shrug? What's their secret? And in the end who has the better life--the admired or the admirer?</p>