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Andorra | 
 enlarge | Author: Peter Cameron
Publisher: Plume
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $0.01
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Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 754622
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 0452279445
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780452279445
ASIN: 0452279445
Publication Date: January 1, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Andorra, the tiny storybook nation snug in the Pyrenees between France and Spain is the setting for Peter Cameron's third book, a lyrical tale that begins as a charming story of manners and romantic relations in the tiny township of La Plata, but develops into a darker (though still comic) story of deception and psychological intrigue. The author's earlier invocations of Proust and Austen give way to impulses akin to Kafka or Camus. When should you stop trusting your narrator's memories and figure out what is really going on in this place? All is not what it seems, as the dark past of several characters returns to dim the brightness of the present surroundings. The hyper-reality of the charming mountain town Cameron creates is the ideal setting for this engaging tale, told in perfect measure, tightly stitched, with no extra bits hanging loosely.
Book Description
Alexander Fox, former owner of an antiquarian bookstore in San Francisco, journeys to a fictional Andorra, a country both beautiful and perilous, following an unspecified accident which has left his wife and daughter dead. Sun-splashed but oddly deserted, Andorra affords a personal refuge to Fox until a series of strange events occur. A handsome, promiscuous Australian couple, one prominent Andorran family, teasing socialites, and dead bodies found floating in the harbor cast a shadow over Andorra's picture-postcard surface. An outsider, Fox falls under suspicion of murder and endures a number of puzzling interrogations. Menacing locals and territorial policemen force Fox to contemplate a desperate escape from Andorra. Strong hardcover performance. * Outstanding reviews. * Excellent track record of Cameron's prior novel, The Weekend, in Plume.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 27 more reviews...
 Andorra: a dreamy mountain paradise September 18, 2003
Peggy Vincent (Oakland, CA)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
Alexander Fox, seeking escape from personal tragedy, settles into the sunny, dreamy mountain paradise of Andorra. But in this haunting novel, something strangely mysterious, almost sinister, lurks in what otherwise appears to be heaven on earth. This book crosses from one genre to another, then back again, and it's difficult to pin down. Is it a mystery? Perhaps, but sometimes it feels like a comedy of manners. Is it a meditation on grief? Maybe, but then it seems to segue into a romance.
Keep reading; it's worth it.
a little masterpiece. April 19, 1999
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Andorra is the first book of Peter Cameron's that I have read. It was like Camus and Kafka meet Agatha Christie. In Camus' The Stranger the narrator is sensuous (Noone communicates heat or the feeling of sand on the skin like Camus) yet profoundly insensitive to emotions, "Mother died today, or was it yesterday...". The narrator of Andorra, Alex Fox, is similarly sensuous and emotionally off. The descriptions of this Andorra through the senses are eloquent word paintings. Such images are lasting, but Alex seems to be misreading his characters all along, a little like the narrator, butler in The Remains of the Day.Once the police take Alex's passport with very little explanation, one feels like the bureaucratic labrynth of The Trial is about to descend. And it does. At the end, I wanted to reread the book to pick up all those clues I'd missed while I was enjoying the experience.
 sublime January 2, 2001
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is a stunning book, and one I don't really recognize in most of the editorial or customer reviews posted here. By purposefully misnaming the book Andorra, the author seems to be telling us that the plot details are secondary...instead the focus is on is the attempts of the main character to maintain strict control over his new life, measuring everything and everyone around him. We slowly come to understand why he has done this, as we see the simplest of encounters cause his life to spin out of control. It's a testament to Cameron's writing that this doesn't quickly get tiring; instead the result is striking, with wonderful insights coming from each encounter. The writing is nimble and spare. A wonderful book...I found myself wanting to reread it as soon as I had finished it.
 A Dark Land of the Mind January 9, 2001
Eric Anderson (London, United Kingdom)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
Andorra is a compelling and beautifully written mystery. It is about a murder about to happen and one that already has happened, but it is mostly about forgetting and running away from a past that cannot be faced. La Plata is not a real place, but an ideal land to run to in your mind to live peacefully when the world becomes violent. Still the imagination which Mr Cameron uses to describe this fantasy land is powerful and descriptively beautiful. Amidst the grim background of the story there are surprisingly fun and quirky observations. Who would think to write an operatic version of The Immoralist? In this author's strange and surreal imaginary land people can give way to eccentricities in searching for an understanding of themselves and there are quite a few surprises that follow.
compelling November 1, 2001
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I love this book. It is not, by any means, literary perfection, but it has stuck with me for the last 3.5 years since I read it. I suppose it appeals to the computer scientist and simulator in me, since it concerns recursion and worldbuilding... but there is something more affective about it than that. Something about the way the protagonist's world unravels around him and around you, something about how he keeps trying to rewrite his past, and fails. The way picturesque Andorra becomes menacing. The book is minimalist, elegant, yet sucks you in. Andorra. I once read a book about a place called Andorra...
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