Customer Reviews
Left me wanting more - By: Hayles, 18 Aug 2008 
The premise for this book is gripping - a man going to his school reunion finds out that his girlfriend of the time claims to have had his child (who has recently been murdered) & his best friend thinks he is a reincarnated Indian chief. The characters are well rounded & cleverly drawn but sadly the action moves too quickly. One minute Dan is told about the daughter he never knew he had, the next minute he is off to prison to visit her killer (even though he is unsure that the child is his). After a brief reunion with his best friend he agrees to steal artefacts from the British Museum for him - even though he is aware that his friend has had a break-down. All in alll it just doesn't ring true & it feels as though Cartwright is trying to make the best of two extreme ideas he came up with. His characters are ordinary & brilliantly created, sadly the world he has created for them is just too extraordinary to ring true.
Wonderful book about memory and love and America. - By: , 17 Jul 1999 
This is the story of an Englishman who goes back to his high school reunion. It's funny, witty, profound & very original...One of the best reads I have had in years. END
Very disappointing - By: , 14 Jul 1999 
After reading the glowing reports of other reviewers, I feel I have to register my astonishment. This is not a great book. It's barely even a mediocre book. The story is full of sad & scarcely likable people - the 'hero' is full of his own self-importance & spends too much time in his hotel room with the porn channel. It's a book that makes you think that there are some things it's better not to go back to
Probably the best contemporary fiction of the year. - By: , 17 May 1999 This is a stunning story of an Englishman who returns to America after a number of years, to find that alll his expectations of his past have been confounded. One of his formerfriends believes he is a Native American chief & his ex-girlfriend tells him she has a child by him who has been murdered by a serial killer. Like the narrator, Dan Silas, we don't know how seriously to take this. But Dan goes to the local penitentiary to meet the allleged killer. This is a horrifying episode which made my hair stand on end. By the end of the book we find that the author has wrapped up an apparently complex tale of friendship, memory, & our relationship to America. This is outstanding.Deserves its Whitbread prize.
Whitbread winning novel about Englishman's return to US - By: , 12 May 1999 Leading the Cheers, winner of the Whitbread Novel of the Year award earlier this year, tells the story of a man callled Dan Silas who returns to his old high school in Michigan. There many surprises await him. One of his friends believes he is the reincarnation of a Native American chief & his cheerleader girlfriend says she has had a child by him. It was conceived in Thomas Jefferson's house on a school trip. This is warm but quite incisive portrait of smalll town America, & our relationship with America. Absolutely the best book of the year.Truly magical.
