Baby Got Books

Radiant Days

Sometimes this blog thing pays off. For instance, I never would have learned about the amazing debut novel Radiant Days by Michael FitzGerald without it. I was talking about books over beers with author and all-around cool guy Ben Tanzer (who I first “met” through these virtual pages). We were tossing out the titles of books that we thought had been criminally overlooked. I forget what I said, but Ben was fairly insistent that I drop everything else that I was doing so that I could run, not walk, to the nearest bookseller and grab a copy of Radiant Days. I owe Ben a huge debt of gratitude for steering me toward this stellar novel (which is on my favorite books read in 2009 list).

The globe-trotting book begins in San Francisco in the midst of the dot-com boom. Anthony Sinclair is a twenty something who is getting paid very well for doing very little, and he feels like a bit of a fraud. After an unfortunate incident, he becomes awash in guilt and need of a change. Anthony is wallowing in a self-destructive haze when a beautiful and mysterious bartender, Gisela, invites him to travel with her back home to Budapest. Sensing an opportunity for something positive, a fresh start and the potential for a relationship with someone seemingly way out of his league, he agrees. But what starts out with so much possibility, rapidly falls down a rabbit hole of what one of my literature professors would call “moral bankruptcy.”

In Budapest, Anthony finds himself with little to do. Gisela come and goes irregularly and on her on her own schedule – and without feeling the need to explain herself later. Anthony is left to fall in with a group of expatriots and English speakers led by Marsh, a cocky and enigmatic British journalist. Instead of finding a renewed sense of purpose, Anthony finds himself ever more disconnected from the world around him. The Europeans that he encounters are in many ways even more morally adrift than Anthony. Where his remove seems to have evolved from a life of relative affluence and ease that seems undeserved, Anthony’s acquaintances on the continent seem to operate on a different moral plane altogether. Their lives bear the permanent imprint and emotional distance brought on by generations of constant war and international conflict.

Things come to a head when Marsh, Gisela, and Anthony set out together for Croatia during the last days of war in the Balkans. Marsh is going to cover the war, and Gisela is setting out on a vague mission that may be of a dubious moral/legal nature. Anthony is more or less tagging along without really questioning his motives for continuing on with people whose acceptance he craves and yet is becoming increasingly more disenchanted with. It is made clear to Anthony on this journey that Americans have no history (relatively speaking) and no real understanding of the history of the broader world. When Marsh calls Anthony out on this point, it is really an indictment of all of us (Americans):

“Didn’t you say you went to college?” he asked.
“Yeah”
“European history? World history? What did they teach you?”
“I didn’t really take any history.”
“How did you graduate?”
“I only had to take classes in my major.”
“You didn’t read Bridge on the Drina? Ivo Andric won the Nobel Prize.”
“Missed that one.”
“No requirements?”
“Not Balkan history.”
“This isn’t Balkan history. This is the history of Western civilization…our civilization..wouldn’t exist if places like Croatia and the greater Balkans hadn’t so generously taken it up the arse for the past one thousand years.”

During the journey from Budapest to Croatia, the novel had me scrambling to Google Earth to figure out where exactly the travelers were (which further served to highlight my own ignorance of this part of the world). I was surprised to learn that many of the places mentioned are stunningly beautiful (Exhibit A and Exhibit B), at least as viewed form here and after the war. Helpfully, someone has compiled a Google map of all of the places mentioned in Radiant Days (with page numbers and reference!). If you plan on reading the book, bookmark the map already.

Radiant Days is a tremendous novel. For me, it raised many interesting questions. How far are you willing to follow that really hot girl that you know is no good for you and how much are you willing to put up with? What are the limits of moral relativism? Is it possible to be more emotionally insulated and self-absorbed than when you are in your twenties? What does it take to snap out of that deadening torpor? Where do you fit into the world as a North American? What responsibilities (if any) come along with the geographic accident of birth? Simply put this is a novel that sticks with you when you’re done.

So. Many thanks to Ben Tanzer for sending this gem my way. And now I share the love and heartily recommend it to you.