As evocative and unpredictable as the people and places it chronicles, P.F. Kluge's MacArthur's Ghost is his most absorbing and ambitious novel to date. Set in the Philippines during the chaos of World War II and the decadent twilight of the Marcos era forty years later, MacArthur's Ghost is a complex and moving tale of war and revolution, victory and defeat, promise and betrayal.
Shifting back and forth in time, MacArthur's Ghost tells the story of Harry Roberts Harding, a reclusive American war hero who returns to Manila forty years after V-J Day courtesy of a film company making a movie about his exploits. To keep him out of trouble -- and out of their hair -- the movie's shadowy producers pair Harding up with another American, a burnt-out young travel writer named George Griffin, who has washed up in the Philippines along with a hundred other "media professionals" on a tourism-industry junket. Hired to ghost-write Harding's memoirs, Griffin accompanies the old man up-country to retrace the progress of Harding's World War II campaigns.
What begins as a simple excursion designed to reawaken old memories turns out in the end to be a dangerous and ultimately unforgettable odyssey of revelation and discovery. As the two men make their way further into the exotic countryside, and into Harding's hidden past, hints of a long-suppressed wartime secret dog their tracks -- with life-and-death implications for the Philippines of the 1980s.
Rich in characters and incident, sophisticated in structure and sensibility, MacArthur's Ghost brings alive the connections between past and present, victor and vanquished, in a world that America conquered but never controlled. Cheers Sterling Seagrave, best-selling author of The Soong Dynasty: "MacArthur's Ghost is a shrewd and witty book, well-wrought and full of memorable images. As a novel, it's more than a good read. Kluge has a gift for sharp political satire and a refreshing grasp of how America turned the Philippines into the world's largest brothel."
Shifting back and forth in time, MacArthur's Ghost tells the story of Harry Roberts Harding, a reclusive American war hero who returns to Manila forty years after V-J Day courtesy of a film company making a movie about his exploits. To keep him out of trouble -- and out of their hair -- the movie's shadowy producers pair Harding up with another American, a burnt-out young travel writer named George Griffin, who has washed up in the Philippines along with a hundred other "media professionals" on a tourism-industry junket. Hired to ghost-write Harding's memoirs, Griffin accompanies the old man up-country to retrace the progress of Harding's World War II campaigns.
What begins as a simple excursion designed to reawaken old memories turns out in the end to be a dangerous and ultimately unforgettable odyssey of revelation and discovery. As the two men make their way further into the exotic countryside, and into Harding's hidden past, hints of a long-suppressed wartime secret dog their tracks -- with life-and-death implications for the Philippines of the 1980s.
Rich in characters and incident, sophisticated in structure and sensibility, MacArthur's Ghost brings alive the connections between past and present, victor and vanquished, in a world that America conquered but never controlled. Cheers Sterling Seagrave, best-selling author of The Soong Dynasty: "MacArthur's Ghost is a shrewd and witty book, well-wrought and full of memorable images. As a novel, it's more than a good read. Kluge has a gift for sharp political satire and a refreshing grasp of how America turned the Philippines into the world's largest brothel."
Used availability for P F Kluge's Macarthur's Ghost