Parrot and Olivier in America

Olivier, born into the French nobility in the wake of the Revolution and modelled loosely on Alexis de Tocqueville, is sent off to the New World, supposedly to report on its prisons but really to keep his head safe from the next upheaval. With him travels Parrot, an Englishman who lost his mother young and grew up with a travelling engraver for a father, who has ended up in service and is charged with protecting the young nobleman and reporting on him. Master and servant take turns to tell the story, and their prickly companionship slowly turns into an unlikely friendship as the two men discover the young American democracy, mostly in the United States of the nineteenth century.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

France, United States, 19th century

First published

2009

Author's age

66 when first published

ISBN

9781926428147 (Hamish Hamilton, Australia)

9780571253296 (Faber & Faber, United Kingdom)

9780307592620 (Alfred A. Knopf, United States)

9780307476012 (Vintage, United States)

9780571253326 (Faber & Faber, United Kingdom)

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