An American foreign service official serving in London looks at some varied (and many times zany) characters with biting satire. Theroux is a great observer and has a great knack for distilling subtle cultural differences. Also provides insight into Thatcher's England. ( )

Ayer Hitam vignettes @ life of Amer in London + Londoners - great

A natural successor to The Consul’s File, this book takes the American narrator from Ayer Hitam to a new post in the London Embassy. As he once observed with cool, amused eye the British and Malays, he can now observe the British and their endless treasure trove of eccentricities on home ground. And the Americans in the embassy are no less curious. There is a man who is beggared when he inherits a title, the embassy Minister who is obsessed with rage at a male employee who wears an earring, an Arab who has come to London to rob a certain tomb, a woman who cycles all the way to Yorkshire to perform a peculiar revenge, and dozens of others who nurse some secret vagary -- and, with each, Theroux produces a surprising illumination.

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed this little book, first read on a plane from Miami to London way back in 1985 or so. I was living in London then, as sometime around then too, was the author. His descriptions of both London and the English and their lifestyles ring very true, and this is an enjoyable scramble through relationships – including that of the “hero” of the story – set in the USA Embassy in London during the time of Margaret Thatcher’s "Iron Lady" rule.

Sometimes the writing is as grumpy and belligerent as Theroux himself sometimes is, but it is constantly witty and surprising … as the author always is! The book is made up of 18 chapters that form short-stories in themselves, and each usually explores a different character (usually eccentric) or aspect of the life of a FSO – 4, Political Officer, working in the American Embassy in London. (” … this was also a promotion for me .. from FSO-5, as a Consular Officer to FSO-4, political Officer. My designation was POL-1,not to be confused with POL-2, the CIA .. I was only a spy in the most general and harmless sense of the word”.) Having some limited experience of both British and American Embassies and Foreign Service officers, I found the descriptions of the various roles and tasks – as well as the actual characters of the Embassy officers – very sound and believable.

Strangely, given the published date and the chosen period Theroux set his book in, it is not ‘dated’ in any of the functions, attitudes or characters who people his stories.

A great – if short – read.

A good read...each chapter stands alone as a short story; but add up to make a whole novel...nice plot twists, quite unexpected and nice window on London life in the 80s. ( )