Parrot and Olivier in America - Peter Stafford Carey

While his own country is in the midst of revolution, young aristocrat Olivier-Jean-Baptiste de Clarel de Barfleur de Garmont explores the newly christened United States with Parrot, a rough-at-the-edges British artist, bodyguard, and spy for the marquis, benefactor of Olivier’s family.  Together this unlikely duo traverses early-19th-century America, ostensibly to study prison reform, but they soon find themselves caught up in a series of picaresque misadventures.  Told in alternating points of view, Peter Carey’s Man Booker-nominated PARROT AND OLIVIER IN AMERICA (Knopf, $26.95) is a comic tour de force, rich with period detail and unforgettable characters.