For Kings and Planets

For Kings and Planets

1998 • 354 pages

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Average rating4

15

From the celebrated author of The Palace Thief and Emperor of the Air, comes this stunning novel about the relationship between two very different men. Orno Tarcher travels from a small town in Missouri to New York City to attend Columbia University, where he begins a new life feeling unsophisticated and insecure. He soon strikes up a friendship with Marshall Emerson, a seductive and brilliant New Yorker whose sophistication dazzles Orno. As time passes, Marshall is revealed to be bent on destruction, and Orno's involvment with Marshall's worldly sister further complicates their friendship. Carefully crafted and skillfully informed by the works of Fitzgerald and Waugh, For Kings and Planets is a remarkable novel. A New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, and Minneapolis StarTribune bestseller, and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998.

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Gatsby-ish.

October 5, 1998

Very good. This novel drew me in like the best of Canin's short stories. Perhaps because of the coming of age elements, as well as the university components and a few other details, it reminded me a bit of Stoner by John Williams, but that may be just me.

Recommended.


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