Customer Reviews

The American Ambassador

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I felt compelled to write when I read the other reviews. I think Just is getting a bad rap. The novel is interesting and creative, and full of poetic prose. I enjoyed the characters. There's the bright but somehow clueless Ambassador and his wife who have lived their lives of adventure, giving their son everything that they would have wanted. But their son, raised overseas (Germany, France and Congo, if I recall correctly) in a "sophistocated" globe-trotting world, rebels against it all. The novel portrays a fascinating dichotomy of a patriotic American father, and his son, who chooses to become a German terrorist.

It's fiction after all, not intended to be fact specific. It's one of Just's best efforts. Ignore the other reviews, they missed the point. This is my third read of a Just novel and I liked it best. "The Translator" is a close second. Having visited Germany many times, I could visualize the settings depicited in the novel and Just's descriptions were right on target. The estranged relationship between parents and son is well presented and the story keeps one guessing at the outcome.

This book is not as bad as the negative reviews here suggest, but this is not Ward Just at his best, either. Worth reading? Absolutely, if you are interested in the psychology of the Cold War. That's what this novel is about. The portrait of Bill North Sr. is beautifully drawn & that is what Just is really interested in here -- a diplomat in extremis -- but the depiction of North's son Bill Jr. is much more problematic. Perhaps all terrorist acts are without motive, but the son's pathological detachment remains unexplained. As I savor the aferglow of the novel, I would note that the figure who sticks with me is Ambassador North's wife, a painter married to a diplomat, a woman who will not be bullied.

If you have not read any of Just's novels, you might want to begin with A Dangerous Friend, which is about the early days of Vietnam & which is more successful, I think, in blending psychology & politics.

So many novels are gone when you finish the last page. This one stays with you. Patricide is hardly a new theme, nor is the European terrorism of the 70s and 80s. Ward Just has written a story, and characters, who are indelible. One can write pages about the motivations and the psychic set of Bill Jr. and Gert. Are they mentally ill? is the society the illness? But this is a story that we have observed more than once. The list of terrorist actions in one of the other reviews should have been different--Aldo Moro, the German bankers and industrialists, the pathology of Bader-Meinhof and the Red Brigades. Thanks to those reviewers who mentioned other Ward Just novels. I'll get them.

This is a story about an American Ambassador, his wife and son. Where the son so obsessively hates his father as to plot his death. So hates Americans that he commits terrorist acts.

Considering the times in which this story occurs (mid to late 1980s) and all the recent terrorist acts having taken place,

1979: Hostages taken at the U.S. Embassy in Iran.
1983: U.S. Embassy bombed in Beirut, Lebanon. 63 dead, including 17 Americans.
1983: U.S. Marine barracks bombed in Lebanon. 241 American dead.
1983: U.S. Embassy bombed in Kuwait. Five dead.
1984: U.S. Embassy annex bombed in Aukar, Lebanon. 24 dead, including two Americans.
1984: Kuwait Airways Flight 221 hijacked. Two Americans murdered.
1985: TWA Flight 847 hijacked. One American murdered.
1985: Achille Lauro ocean liner hijacked. One American murdered.
1985: Attacks on Rome and Vienna airports. 20 dead, including five Americans.
1986: Bombing of La Belle discotheque in West Berlin. One American dead.
1988: Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. 270 dead.
1980-1992: Dozens of Americans and other Westerners kidnapped and murdered in the Middle East, mostly in Lebanon.

it is totally inconceivable that the story would end as it does. I found lots of disappointing tidbits here and there that stretched credibility to the max (reasons for the sons extreme hate for father & American makes no sense, inexperienced ambassador and wife both able to elude experienced CIA followers, sons intellectual abilities and memory at the age of 5y/o). But even so it was a story beautifully told in the Just tradition. This man can write!

A story about an American Ambassador with a son who hates him to such an extreme that he plots his death.

Considering the times in which this story occurs (mid/late '80s) and the slew of recent terrorist acts,

1979: Hostages taken at the U.S. Embassy in Iran.
1983: U.S. Embassy bombed in Beirut, Lebanon. 63 dead, including 17 Americans.
1983: U.S. Marine barracks bombed in Lebanon. 241 American dead.
1983: U.S. Embassy bombed in Kuwait. Five dead.
1984: U.S. Embassy annex bombed in Aukar, Lebanon. 24 dead, including two Americans.
1984: Kuwait Airways Flight 221 hijacked. Two Americans murdered.
1985: TWA Flight 847 hijacked. One American murdered.
1985: Achille Lauro ocean liner hijacked. One American murdered.
1985: Attacks on Rome and Vienna airports. 20 dead, including five Americans.
1986: Bombing of La Belle discotheque in West Berlin. One American dead.
1988: Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. 270 dead.
1980-1992: Dozens of Americans and other Westerners kidnapped and murdered in the Middle East, mostly in Lebanon.

it is totally inconceivable that this story would end as it does.

I also found lots of disappointing tidbits here n there that stretched credibility to the max (reasons for the sons extreme hate for father & Americans makes no sense, inexperienced ambassador and wife both able to elude experienced CIA followers, sons intellectual abilities and memory at the ripe old age of 5 y/o, etc.) but even so it was a story beautifully told in the Just tradition. This man can write!

Just, usually so talented, wastes himself on this effort. It starts bad and stays that way. It is a real shame, though his other attempts (Echo House, even the uneven Stringer) are worth while.

This is the first book by Ward Just I have read, and probably the only book I will ever want to read by him again. It's hard to follow because the plot jumps like crazy, and at times it barely makes sense. It does not keep the reader captivated and the plot line lacks a central purpose.