Corporal Chauncy T. McClarren is a Vietnam Veteran. His ten years of service as a marine are glibly worn on the sleeve of his dress uniform well into civilian life. He went to Vietnam before the draft began with the hope of being a martyr. He is reluctant to admit this to his friend and even to himself. Elizabeth A Spaarkes randomly selects Chauncy's door. She flees to Florida after two years in the Symbionese Liberation Army. She is the perfect woman. She is a redheaded goddess. "Lizzy" is a nymphomaniac who fills his every desire sexually, and eventually, domestically. Gunnery Sergeant Harrold H. Coffman comes home from the war a paraplegic. He owes his life to his Corporal. One day he learns on the news of Spaarkes's possible involvement with the left-wing group. He believes she is guilty. Chauncy chooses to give her the benefit of the doubt. He refuses to believe a woman that beautiful could be a fugitive. Agent of Orange is the story of a Rheinlandbastard. Chauncy is a pragmatist who shifts the stations in life around so the logistics favor him. It follows his trail of passively sequencing fate from Vietnam to Florida. It leads him to the Bahamas where he takes an orphaned boy back to Florida. Fate leads him on a series of trips to Germany to learn his origin. It is the story of a biracial miscreant who grew up unloved and beaten. It is one man's perception of racism in America and abroad. He is taught some manners and discipline in the marines. He faces a world that begs for his attention as he begs for its salvation. The marines outfit him with the diplomacy necessary to deal with what life has thrown, and continues to throw, at him. Chauncy T. McClarren takes his time in life. He orchestrates things while sauntering through life with a grifting nonchalance. He is methodical and pragmatic enough to see his various operations through to the end.
Imagination, arduous mental journey; fortuitous phrase, perseverance, my fascination with slanting history slightly upward
~~
Michael P. Amram's Agent of Orange is an expansive exploration of the intersection between history and identity. In Chauncey McClarren, Amram's protagonist, readers will discover a character made complex by the journey to discover his biological parents and the historical, ethnic mysteries of his birth. Moving through the racist school of his youth, the alienation of his return from Vietnam, and the discovery of his strange origins in Nazi Germany, McClarren struggles to find fulfillment in his relationships, and his journey toward self-understanding is as much cultural as personal. On occasion Amram deals in improbabilities (at one point McClarren foils a hijacking by throwing the terrorist out of a jet), but the larger-than-life plot suits the weighty themes of race, religion and ethnicity at the heart of the novel.
Amram knows his material. Whether in descriptions of the culture of bodybuilding or the marine life of the Bahamas, the settings of Agent of Orange offer vivid detail and symbolic weight to the intensity of character and plot.
~~
Official Review: Agent of Orange by Michael P Amram
Post Number:#1 Postby ipekbunsal » 06 Aug 2014, 13:24
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Agent of Orange" by Michael P Amram.]
Agent of Orange is a fiction novel written by Michael P Amram. It is about a black man who has problems because of his ethnicity and does not know his actual identity. He joins the army because he has nothing else in his life. When he gets back, fate makes him look for his biological parents. So, his journey begins.
Since it is a fiction book, only historical informations in the book are real, other events and characters are made up by the writer himself. What is great about the book is you can learn things you did not know before and see how they perfectly evolved in the story.
The story includes so many themes in it. War, racism, commitment, God and fate… It is about what wars turn people into, how racism differs in the other parts of the world, what is religions’ place in a little child’s life. But the most evident theme of the story was ‘’Fate’’. Whatever happens in the story, our main character always thinks it is fate that what makes him go through what he goes through.
It is not only about a man who’s looking for his parents, but it is also about a man who discovers new things in his life. Corporal Chauncy T. McClarren comes back from war in one piece, however his friend Harrold returns disabled. War changes all of them, Harrold returns as a paranoid, fat guy who drinks all the time. Chauncy wants to go find his real parents. After a little help from a gypsy our character starts a search to find them. He has a fugitive girlfriend out of nowhere and more and more characters add to the story. That actually makes this story better, with rich characters and rich themes, it becomes a very enjoyable adventure.
My favorite character of the story is Lizzy Spaarkes, whom I hated at the beginning. I think she uses Chauncy to get away with what she has done in the past. Then, she becomes a different person, still herself but improved. I also loved her because she seems to be a tough woman who knows how to stand on her feet. In fact, Michael P Amram puts many strong women in his book which makes me enjoy it more. He does not depict women as vulnerable creatures, but strong ones.
I give this book 3 out of 4 stars. I love the characters, I love the story, I love how writer puts many meanings under the story. The only thing that bugs me is that it feels like the most important thing in the book is not the story. I got distracted when there was other irrelevant stories in the book. I thought ‘’Why did he write that?’’ and could not connect it with the general point.
After all, it is a perfect book if you would enjoy going to America, Germany, France, the Bahamas in 1980’s without even getting up from your chair!
***
And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
User avatar
ipekbunsal Posts: 166Joined: 26 Jul 2014, 15:24Location: Turkey
Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you're an author or publisher, you've come to the right place. BookBuzzr provides one of the most comprehensive set of book-marketing technologies and services in the world. We're constantly adding new features in a race with ourselves to build technologies that will help your books fly out of book-stores.
