Stars and Bars (novel)

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Stars and Bars
First edition (UK)
Author	William Boyd
Publisher	Hamish Hamilton (UK) William Morrow & Co (US)
Publication date	1984 (UK); 1985 (USA)
Pages	255 (UK) 334 (US)
ISBN	0241113431

Stars and Bars, the third novel by Scottish author William Boyd, was first published in 1984 in the United Kingdom by Hamish Hamilton, and in 1985 in the United States by William Morrow & Co. Boyd subsequently developed it as a screenplay and it was released as a film in 1988.

The book tells the tragicomic story of attempts by visiting British art appraiser Henderson Dore, in New York City and the Deep South, to negotiate the cultural differences between British and American approaches to conducting business.^[1]

Reviewing the novel for The New York Times, Caroline Seebohm said: "Mr. Boyd has some funny and perceptive things to say about English shyness as opposed to American spontaneity... But the author seems also to latch on to what are now fairly well aired differences between the English and Americans – pronunciation, for instance, and that old cliche about Americans ruining whiskey with ice... The major scenes in Stars and Bars take place in Luxora Beach, a place of unremitting bleakness and despair. Mr. Boyd's talent in evoking a place, which worked for him so well in his earlier two novels, serves him brilliantly here. In fact, the reader is forced to ask why on earth Henderson, wimpish though he is, does not get out when he can... The point about Henderson's liberation from his roots is well taken, and his adventures through the jungle are amusingly narrated, but the 'new clarity' with which he views the world at the end remains, for the reader, a lingering fog".^[2]

References

^ Stade, George; Karbiener, Karen, eds. (2009). Encyclopedia of British Writers, 1800 to the Present, Volume 2 (2nd ed.). Infobase Publishing. p. 66. ISBN 9781438116891. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
^ Seebohm, Caroline (14 April 1985). "The Treasures of Luxora Beach". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 March 2018.

External links

Official website

v t e Works by William Boyd
Novels	A Good Man in Africa (1981) An Ice-Cream War (1982) Stars and Bars (1984) The New Confessions (1987) Brazzaville Beach (1990) The Blue Afternoon (1993) Armadillo (1998) Nat Tate (1998) Any Human Heart (2002) Restless (2006) Ordinary Thunderstorms (2009) Waiting for Sunrise (2012) Solo (2013) Sweet Caress (2015) Love is Blind (2018) Trio (2020) The Romantic (2022) Gabriel's Moon (2024)
Short story collections	On the Yankee Station (1981) The Destiny of Nathalie 'X' (1995) Fascination (2004) The Dream Lover (2008) The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth (2017)
Screenplays	Good and Bad at Games (1983) Dutch Girls (1985) Scoop (1987) Stars and Bars (1988) Mister Johnson (1990) Tune in Tomorrow (1990) Chaplin (1992) A Good Man in Africa (1994) The Trench (1999) Sword of Honour (2001) Armadillo (2001) A Waste of Shame (2005) Man to Man (2005) Any Human Heart (2010) Restless (2012)
Plays	Longing (2013) The Argument (2016)
Non-fiction	Protobiography (1998) Bamboo (2005)

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