Customer Reviews

Radiant Days: A Novel

5 star:		(11)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

this is a powerful, moving book. its a coming of age story which has deep resonance for anyone who's ever gone looking for adventure - and stumbled across experinces far deeper and more disturbing than they'd ever bargained for. I found the author's pen portrait of the central european generation expat poignant and accurate. the description of the author's journey to croatia - the place he goes beyond the boundaries of normal expat experience into the wartime uncertainties of life and death - was so well drawn I felt almost as though I had been there with him myself. worth a read.

This is a fantastic novel. The very act of placing a dot-com era san-franciscan in the middle of the yugoslav wars is as hilarious as it is tragic, a move that isn't just brilliant, but also courageous and important. But the best part of this book is the narrator. In all of his selfishness and restlessness, he's truer to life than most other characters in contemporary literature. Anyone offended by his observations hasn't looked deep enough within their own desires. The world that Fitzgerald creates is like our own world, in that it's not populated by heroes or villains, but by humans. In addition, it's a fast-paced page-turner of a book. I took two tylenol PMs before I started it, and couldn't fall asleep until I'd finished part one.

At a time when people say the word "war" daily without bothering to conjure up the details even yearly, we need books like Radiant Days. This novel traces a terrifying and previously unimaginable trajectory from the smug, insular affluence of 1990s San Francisco to nameless, offhand death in the streets of war-torn Croatia. There is something essentially American about FitzGerald's hero's voluntary tour of the killing fields, and I don't just mean the sex and drugs. It is no stretch to say that this book may well be the Farewell to Arms of our generation.

I loved this book!! It's a fresh, funny and insightful look into the male ego and an honest reflection of an American attitude on international politics. This is the best novel I've read in many years. It's smart, clever and well written. I loved it! This is the first time I've ever written a review on Amazon and I was compelled to do so because of how much I enjoyed reading the book. Thanks Michael Fitzgerald for gracing us with your first novel.

Having lived through the tech boom in San Francisco and in Eastern Europe at basically the same time -- I was excited to read this book and was not disapointed. Fitzgerald captures the feeling of that time in the Bay Area very well -- even more so of the ex-pat and English speaking community in Budapest -- it really brought me back. The characters are loveable -- especially the British reporter. The lead character, while also loveable is one I could relate to, in a familiar way -- he also reminds me of why I rarely date Americans. After having read this book, I can now die happy with no regrets. It completes me.

Radiant Days is thick with detail, angst, desperation, ennui, and culture shock. The story is set in post-soviet Budapest where expats live cheaply and spout philosophy and political theory without doing much else. Our hero, Anthony, accompanies Gisela to Hungary and finds he might be there under false pretenses. As the lies and truths are revealed they don't seem to mean much to him - he is interested only in his modest goals of appearing cool and screwing Gisela. The story moves to the Balkans (during the height of the war) and life gets riskier and more complicated.

Michael FitzGerald tells a story within a story - how an average college educated American can know so little about the rest of the world and the history of long time animosities, that everything has to be explained to him as he travels. Fitzgerald is brutally truthful with all his characters - at times I hated some and liked others, only to have my position switched in the next fifty pages.

I loved this book, and I can't stop thinking about it!

Foremost, this is a good read. It's one of those you-can't-look-away stories, which ends up implicating everyone, all the characters, the whole human race. Funny, and grim, and smart, and nasty. Highly recommended.

I thought it was an amazing book. His description of how vapid the corporate world can be was dead-on. I have often felt that way at times but the way Fitzgerald captures the feelings in words was way beyond my ability. I also thought the author revealed a lot of himself. I have never done heroine, but I think after reading the book I have a fairly good idea of what it would be like because his descriptions were so disturbingly vivid. I also liked the book because it was like nothing I have ever read before in that it was original. I think I actually liked it more than Cather in the Rye (admittedly that sounds like a bit of an overstatement) but in many ways I think it drew me in more than Salinger's writing. I found myself thinking about it often for several weeks after reading it. I read it about two years ago now and it still lingers in the back of my mind. It was just a very different narrative than I had ever encountered before. I look forward to the next book.

FItzgeralds' Anthony embodies all that is the directionless slacker generation with flair. Looking forward to a second novel!

I enjoyed this book SO much. And not just because I hail from Michael's home town. I read it in 4 days and it usually takes me over a month to get through a book. It was a history lesson in a non-boring way. A first person look at how low a man will go. And nothing was held back. Made me want to quit my tech job and find an attractive foreign man of my own to follow overseas. Except i'd be the one doing the abandoning. Go out and get this book already!