Adam Kellas is a war reporter pursuing the woman he has fallen in love with and been separated from. Moving over time and continents this is a beautifully written and yet gritty story of love, loss and war and politics. Quite unputdownable.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century Adam Kellas finds himself hurled on a journey between continents and cultures. In his quest from the war-torn mountains of Afghanistan to the elegant dinner tables of north London and then the marshlands of the American South, only the memory of the beautiful, elusive Astrid offers the possibility of hope. With all the explosive drama of The People’s Act of Love, this is a spellbinding tale of folly and the pursuit of love from one of today’s most talented and visionary writers.
'This is a truthful and powerful novel. Does it come anywhere near the Greatest War Reporter Novel podium, whose only occupant, Evelyn Waugh's Scoop, has stood there without serious challenge for 70 years? I think it does. It might have got a little nearer to toppling that great cynic's romp if it weren't for the fact that this is at heart a novel about much more: it's about love, friendship and the struggle to be true in a world that has lost its grip on certainties.' Alex Renton, Statesman
'Meek exhibits such a knowing sense of humour . . . typically audacious.' New Yorker
Author
About James Meek
James Meek was born in London in 1962 and grew up in Dundee. We Are Now Beginning Our Descent is his fourth novel. His previous book, The People's Act of Love (2005), won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, the SAC Book of the Year Award, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and has been translated into more than twenty languages.
He has published two collections of short stories, Last Orders and The Museum Of Doubt, and contributed to the acclaimed Rebel Inc anthologies The Children Of Albion Rovers and The Rovers Return.
He has worked as a journalist since 1985, and his reporting from Iraq and about Guantanamo Bay won a number of British and international awards. In the autumn of 2001 he reported for the Guardian from Afghanistan on the war against the Taliban and the liberation of Kabul.
