Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure

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Random House Worlds, Dec 18, 2008 - Fiction - 224 pages
#1 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

“A picaresque, swashbuckling adventure.”—The Washington Post Book World

They’re an odd pair, to be sure: pale, rail-thin, black-clad Zelikman, a moody, itinerant physician fond of jaunty headgear, and ex-soldier Amram, a gray-haired giant of a man as quick with a razor-tongued witticism as with a sharpened battle-ax. Brothers under the skin, comrades in arms, they make their rootless way through the Caucasus Mountains, circa a.d. 950, living as they please and surviving however they can—as blades and thieves for hire and as practiced bamboozlers, cheerfully separating the gullible from their money. But when they are dragooned into service as escorts and defenders to a prince of the Khazar Empire, they soon find themselves the half-willing generals in a full-scale revolution—on a road paved with warriors and whores, evil emperors and extraordinary elephants, secrets, swordplay, and such stuff as the grandest adventures are made of.

Praise for Gentlemen of the Road

“Within a few pages I was happily tangled in [Chabon’s] net of finely filigreed language, seduced by an old-school-style swashbuckling quest . . . laced with surprises and humor.”San Francisco Chronicle

“[Chabon] is probably the premiere prose stylist—the Updike—of his generation.”Time

“The action is intricate and exuberant. . . . It’s hard to resist its gathering momentum, not to mention the sheer headlong pleasure of Chabon’s language.”The New York Times Book Review

“[A] wild, wild adventure . . . abounds with lush language . . . This book roars to be read aloud.”Chicago Sun-Times

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About the author (2008)

Michael Chabon is the author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh; Wonder Boys, which was made into a critically acclaimed film; The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize; The Final Solution: A Story of Detection; and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. He is also the author of two short-story collections and a young adult novel, Summerland. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

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