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Little America
In this suspenseful and atmospheric spy novel in the tradition of Graham Greene and John le Carr, Henry Bromell unfolds a labyrinthine tale of intrigue and moral ambiguity.
In 1958, at the height of the Cold War, CIA agent Mack Hooper arrived in the tiny middle-eastern kingdom of Kurash with a mission to befriend and protect its inexperienced young ruler. Now, forty years later, the country no longer exists and Mack’s son Terry is trying to piece together his father’s story. Was he a friend to the young king, or a diplomat-seducer sent to betray him? And what happened to the lost kingdom? Moving deftly between the feudal world of Kurash and the martini-washed enclaves of the American spies, Little America is a riveting and unexpectedly moving tale of honor and betrayal as well as a brilliant evocation of espionage in the darkest days of the Cold War.
In 1958, at the height of the Cold War, CIA agent Mack Hooper arrived in the tiny middle-eastern kingdom of Kurash with a mission to befriend and protect its inexperienced young ruler. Now, forty years later, the country no longer exists and Mack’s son Terry is trying to piece together his father’s story. Was he a friend to the young king, or a diplomat-seducer sent to betray him? And what happened to the lost kingdom? Moving deftly between the feudal world of Kurash and the martini-washed enclaves of the American spies, Little America is a riveting and unexpectedly moving tale of honor and betrayal as well as a brilliant evocation of espionage in the darkest days of the Cold War.
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
February 1, 2018
Spellbinding and brilliant, the question of who killed the king and even more so, why? An act of betrayal, written so beautifully, will leave you poignant and haunted. A spy novel like no other, Henry Bromell brings to life the fictional country of Kurash, rife in Middle-Eastern politics, fending off Pan-Egyptian, Syrian, and Israeli forces, diverting from Soviet influence, and disintegrating under the US's control. The story follows Terry Hooper, a historian, researching expatriate Americans and the US's foreign policy in the Middle-East during the 50s and 60s. Specifically, his father, a former CIA agent, influence in the region.
This is no doubt a historian's dream novel, the narrative is brilliantly detailed, but it does not deter from the story. You can feel the dry desert air, the coldness and excitement of revolution, but most impressively, the realness of the hidden mechanisms of the CIA in foreign countries. Bromell paints vivid images, of the mysterious works of American efforts influencing and yielding power in turbulent times.
Bromell's words bring a sense of familiarity. It draws parallels to today's world, most notably, it draws similarities to the Arab Spring revolution. With such a large time gap, evidently, the novel demonstrates the mindset of the human being, that we humans have not learnt from past mistakes, even more so, do we really ever learn from the past? The Human conditioning of repeating our actions, recycling our attitudes, to take a leap forward only to have gravity brings us back into the past.
A real page-turner, that is grounded by humane ideas and philosophy, and the idea of what classifies as good or bad. A novel worth taking your time with.
This is no doubt a historian's dream novel, the narrative is brilliantly detailed, but it does not deter from the story. You can feel the dry desert air, the coldness and excitement of revolution, but most impressively, the realness of the hidden mechanisms of the CIA in foreign countries. Bromell paints vivid images, of the mysterious works of American efforts influencing and yielding power in turbulent times.
Bromell's words bring a sense of familiarity. It draws parallels to today's world, most notably, it draws similarities to the Arab Spring revolution. With such a large time gap, evidently, the novel demonstrates the mindset of the human being, that we humans have not learnt from past mistakes, even more so, do we really ever learn from the past? The Human conditioning of repeating our actions, recycling our attitudes, to take a leap forward only to have gravity brings us back into the past.
A real page-turner, that is grounded by humane ideas and philosophy, and the idea of what classifies as good or bad. A novel worth taking your time with.
May 30, 2013
Published just before 9/11, and somewhat upstaged by the War on Terror, this novel is Henry Bromell's fiction masterpiece and deserves widened appreciation. It deals with a fictitious "puppet" kingdom, Kurash, caught between Syria and Iraq during the 1950s, when Nassar's pan-Arab movement was threatening the USA's Cold War oil interests. The CIA props up the young king's government, which otherwise has no industrial base, with secret, monthly gifts of cash delivered by Mack Hooper, an embassy diplomat who works for the CIA. The novel is narrated, wonderfully, by Hooper's son Terry years later, who has come of age during those years abroad and assumed imperialistic entitlement with the children of other diplomats, while wondering why his parents can only have intimate discussions in the bathroom with the shower running (a precaution against being bugged by the Russians or by the kingdom's secret service). His father's tense domestic behavior, the result of a double life, disturb both the young and the adult Terry Hooper, who gradually discovers his father's role as a spy (ultimately for the Dulles brothers, who make their cameo appearance), and who may or may not have been directly implicated in the assassination of the young king, which led to the dissolution of Kurash. Terry writes: "It's exhilarating, the pure positive charge of paranoia, which sometimes I think is all we've got left to grant us a universe with plot, now that religion has abandoned us. While the rest of us sank further and further into a miasma of rootlessness all through the fifties and sixties, my father and his cohorts were living in a world bursting with signification...Was my father a good man, or a bad man? I don't know." Prescient, entertaining, eloquent, structurally canny, the mode here suggests F. Scott Fitzgerald meets John La Carre. As the adult Terry speculates and investigates, he not only remembers his younger perspective, but enters the adult points of view of his parents, the King, and officials in the King’s government. In addition to offering dramatic dialogue, Bromell's prose offers sophisticated philosophy and evocative descriptions of place; he makes us "see." Bromell wrote this novel while he had seemingly moved from a literary career to one of writing and producing TV and film, working on such shows as "Northern Exposure" and "Homicide: Life on the Street." His most recent was the hit "Homeland," before his sudden death, March, 2013.
November 7, 2010
The novel centers around Terry Hooper, who is determined to find out, post 9/11, exactly what his father did in the CIA while he and his family were living in the middle east in the 50s. This was at perhaps the beginning of the US's miscalculations in that part of the world. Terry works from newly released government documents and attempts to confirm the information with his separated parents, who are still bound by the "code of silence." The plot moves along well, the characters are multidimensional, and his depiction of "little America" nicely captures the insular arrogance of the American diplomatic community in that era.
The author has had an interesting career. He lived in "little America" as a child, and in the early 70s wrote what I think of as Salingeresque stories, published in the New Yorker, and set in that milieu. Then he worked in television, writing and directing for both Northern Exposure and Homicide. He also wrote and directed one of my favorite indie movies, Panic, starring Donald Sutherland and Willam H. Macy.
The author has had an interesting career. He lived in "little America" as a child, and in the early 70s wrote what I think of as Salingeresque stories, published in the New Yorker, and set in that milieu. Then he worked in television, writing and directing for both Northern Exposure and Homicide. He also wrote and directed one of my favorite indie movies, Panic, starring Donald Sutherland and Willam H. Macy.
May 13, 2008
Excellent story of historian researching his secretive father's CIA background and involvement in the death of the young Arab king of a small mid-East country in 1958. Reminded me of the movie Syriana.
December 28, 2010
"It's exhilarating, the pure positive charge of paranoia, which sometimes I think is all we've got left to grant us a universe with a plot, now that religion has abandoned us" (p. 386).
November 28, 2025
Drugi roman koji je napisao Henry Bromell, nema gotovo nikakve stilske ili tematske veze sa prvim. Dok je prvi bio teskoban, egzistencijalistički njujorški krimić u kom se "američki stil realizma" preplitao za uzorima poput Dostojevskog, Zole, Camusa itd. u drugom Bromell piše raskošan špijunski triler, sa parabiografskim elementima svog oca, jednu priču koja u sebi ujedinjuje bogat mejnstrim ugođaj porodične istorije i tenziju trilera.
Smešten u imaginarnu hašemitsku kraljevinu Kuraš na razmeđu Sirije, Jordana i Iraka, i 1958. godinu, kada Amerika ima vojnu nadmoć ali deluje kao da većina sveta prelazi na stranu Sovjeta, američki obaveštajac sa porodicom dolazi da preuzme svoje radno mesto i na terenu. Četrdeset godina kasnije, njegov sin, pisac i istoričar pokušava da rekonstruiše događaje koji su doveli do smrti kralja te kraljevine i njenog nestanka.
Bromell vešto i nimalo mehanički prepliće sadašnjost i prošlost. Može se reći da se u osnovnu priču u prošlosti prelazi gotovo pa neosetno i da je nužna doza mehaničnosti zbilja svedena na minimum.
Karakteri su zanimljivi, a kada gledamo sudbine onih kojih su službovali po Trećem svetu na obaveštajnim zadacima, konstatujemo da su sve njihove porodice nesrećne na svoj način.
Bromell kao kolenović ovde preispituje vrlo diskretno i kroz fikciju svoje porodično nasleđe. I mnogo šta iz ovog romana čini da kasnije bolje razumemo HOMELAND, njegov najpoznatiji doprinos špijunskom žanru na televiziji, ali i RUBICON, njegov daleko najbolji.
Bromellov roman ima ambicije koje nadilazi tipičan žanrovski špijunac, tako da vrši i neke postmoderne intervencije, koristeći svojevrsne izvore, postojeće i izmaštane da bi ispričao priču o mestu koje nikada nije postojalo ali uprkos tome govori istinu o američkoj bliskoistočnoj politici.
LITTLE AMERICA je roman koji na zdrav način iznenađuje čitaoca ali ga u sebe apsorbuje pre svega fundamentalnim vrednostima sigurnog pripovedanje i sadržajne priče.
Smešten u imaginarnu hašemitsku kraljevinu Kuraš na razmeđu Sirije, Jordana i Iraka, i 1958. godinu, kada Amerika ima vojnu nadmoć ali deluje kao da većina sveta prelazi na stranu Sovjeta, američki obaveštajac sa porodicom dolazi da preuzme svoje radno mesto i na terenu. Četrdeset godina kasnije, njegov sin, pisac i istoričar pokušava da rekonstruiše događaje koji su doveli do smrti kralja te kraljevine i njenog nestanka.
Bromell vešto i nimalo mehanički prepliće sadašnjost i prošlost. Može se reći da se u osnovnu priču u prošlosti prelazi gotovo pa neosetno i da je nužna doza mehaničnosti zbilja svedena na minimum.
Karakteri su zanimljivi, a kada gledamo sudbine onih kojih su službovali po Trećem svetu na obaveštajnim zadacima, konstatujemo da su sve njihove porodice nesrećne na svoj način.
Bromell kao kolenović ovde preispituje vrlo diskretno i kroz fikciju svoje porodično nasleđe. I mnogo šta iz ovog romana čini da kasnije bolje razumemo HOMELAND, njegov najpoznatiji doprinos špijunskom žanru na televiziji, ali i RUBICON, njegov daleko najbolji.
Bromellov roman ima ambicije koje nadilazi tipičan žanrovski špijunac, tako da vrši i neke postmoderne intervencije, koristeći svojevrsne izvore, postojeće i izmaštane da bi ispričao priču o mestu koje nikada nije postojalo ali uprkos tome govori istinu o američkoj bliskoistočnoj politici.
LITTLE AMERICA je roman koji na zdrav način iznenađuje čitaoca ali ga u sebe apsorbuje pre svega fundamentalnim vrednostima sigurnog pripovedanje i sadržajne priče.
March 19, 2013
Just wanted to add that the author has suddenly passed away, age 66, on March 19th 2013, of a heart attack in California.
I picked up this book because fellow expatriates I went to school with in Saudi Arabia in the early 1960's had mentioned the author on our Facebook page. The novel is about the 'Little America' expatriate Americans tend to recreate, wherever they live abroad.
This instance of a 'Little America' is set in 1958, in a fictional Middle Eastern country Bromell calls Kurash (which could be a take off from Kurdistan?). The consequences for the country are dire, but the consequences for those old CIA types who 'played God' with other peoples' lives also has unexpected consequences, not the least of which is the alcoholism, guilt and insanity that plagues them into the next generation.
This 'Little America' he writes of is completely WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant). We expats referred to these enclaves as the 'golden ghetto(s)' where life felt unreal, in part because you felt not only insulated and alienated from the actual local culture and the reality of its people, but it was also like being frozen in a time warp of the USA, while your 'Homeland' was fast changing and if you ever returned you'd never really catch up with it again.
Then I found out Bromwell has been involved in the recent TV drama 'Homeland' for which, according to Wikipedia, "He is currently a consulting producer on the Showtime series Homeland and wrote three episodes: "The Good Soldier", "Representative Brody" and "Q&A". This doesn't surprise me. Any one who likes the show will get some good historical background from reading 'Little America'.
A quote: "We grew up in places like Georgetown and Alexandria and Chevy Chase; we were flown in great thumping silver Pan American airplanes all the way to Rome, all the way to Greece, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, Hamra, Cairo; we went to American Community Schools; we spent weekends swimming at the American Club."
And: "Ivy League bumblers and drunks who had once pulled the levers of secret gov't in an age of high anxiety...These were the bastards who beat the bastards, unless it was all just dumb luck.' (page 296)
"He was in way over his head... We're held accountable for our stupidity & moral ignorance... Arrogant condescension...suffering from self-hatred which comes along with a terrible nostalgia for the way we imagine things were, the nostalgia of defeat...breeds tyrants... He can hold his liquor, I'll give him that. It's a generational skill,...indicative of a pathology."
And my favorite:"The end of something, that specific mid-century American upper-middle-class WASP East Coast thing, the mercantile remnant of the Puritans, the ruling class tossed up by the Civil War and westward expansion, a whole litany of crimes now lost within the comforts of civilization, harmless as a lullaby... I felt nothing but regret. I do not suffer loss well... Their dark and unfortunate masterpiece, the Vietnam War...dislodged, then replaced...powerful now only in the heads of their children, the children of Little America... When we die, they'll vanish forever." (page 299)
It took me several days to shake off this space, place & time. ;-)
I picked up this book because fellow expatriates I went to school with in Saudi Arabia in the early 1960's had mentioned the author on our Facebook page. The novel is about the 'Little America' expatriate Americans tend to recreate, wherever they live abroad.
This instance of a 'Little America' is set in 1958, in a fictional Middle Eastern country Bromell calls Kurash (which could be a take off from Kurdistan?). The consequences for the country are dire, but the consequences for those old CIA types who 'played God' with other peoples' lives also has unexpected consequences, not the least of which is the alcoholism, guilt and insanity that plagues them into the next generation.
This 'Little America' he writes of is completely WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant). We expats referred to these enclaves as the 'golden ghetto(s)' where life felt unreal, in part because you felt not only insulated and alienated from the actual local culture and the reality of its people, but it was also like being frozen in a time warp of the USA, while your 'Homeland' was fast changing and if you ever returned you'd never really catch up with it again.
Then I found out Bromwell has been involved in the recent TV drama 'Homeland' for which, according to Wikipedia, "He is currently a consulting producer on the Showtime series Homeland and wrote three episodes: "The Good Soldier", "Representative Brody" and "Q&A". This doesn't surprise me. Any one who likes the show will get some good historical background from reading 'Little America'.
A quote: "We grew up in places like Georgetown and Alexandria and Chevy Chase; we were flown in great thumping silver Pan American airplanes all the way to Rome, all the way to Greece, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, Hamra, Cairo; we went to American Community Schools; we spent weekends swimming at the American Club."
And: "Ivy League bumblers and drunks who had once pulled the levers of secret gov't in an age of high anxiety...These were the bastards who beat the bastards, unless it was all just dumb luck.' (page 296)
"He was in way over his head... We're held accountable for our stupidity & moral ignorance... Arrogant condescension...suffering from self-hatred which comes along with a terrible nostalgia for the way we imagine things were, the nostalgia of defeat...breeds tyrants... He can hold his liquor, I'll give him that. It's a generational skill,...indicative of a pathology."
And my favorite:"The end of something, that specific mid-century American upper-middle-class WASP East Coast thing, the mercantile remnant of the Puritans, the ruling class tossed up by the Civil War and westward expansion, a whole litany of crimes now lost within the comforts of civilization, harmless as a lullaby... I felt nothing but regret. I do not suffer loss well... Their dark and unfortunate masterpiece, the Vietnam War...dislodged, then replaced...powerful now only in the heads of their children, the children of Little America... When we die, they'll vanish forever." (page 299)
It took me several days to shake off this space, place & time. ;-)
September 23, 2013
It’s been a while since I read this but just heard on the Emmy awards that Henry Bromell, who just won an award for screenplay writing, had passed away earlier this year.
I remember this as a page turner. Down to earth characters. Grounded plot (and I read lots of “espionage”-type literature. This book was among the best I’ve read. I’d rate it 4 ½ stars, if scale allowed
I remember this as a page turner. Down to earth characters. Grounded plot (and I read lots of “espionage”-type literature. This book was among the best I’ve read. I’d rate it 4 ½ stars, if scale allowed
October 11, 2020
Avec Little America, Henry Bromell nous offre un roman écrit de manière magistrale, qui fascine son lecteur de la première à la dernière page.
Louvoyant entre les manœuvres dressées par la politique étrangère américaine et les états d'âme des agents ayant à les mettre en œuvre, Terry Hooper cherche finalement à répondre à une seule question : quel rôle a joué son père dans la mort du roi ?
Louvoyant entre les manœuvres dressées par la politique étrangère américaine et les états d'âme des agents ayant à les mettre en œuvre, Terry Hooper cherche finalement à répondre à une seule question : quel rôle a joué son père dans la mort du roi ?
February 1, 2024
Un thriller très bien écrit et subtil, marqué par la volonté de raconter avec subtilité la situation du moyen orient pendant la guerre froide et le colonialisme occidental.
On reconnaît la patte du scénariste de Homeland dans le fait de tirer sur plusieurs fils narratifs, de creuser les implications géopolitiques de l’espionnage et de nous tenir en haleine jusqu’au bout.
On reconnaît la patte du scénariste de Homeland dans le fait de tirer sur plusieurs fils narratifs, de creuser les implications géopolitiques de l’espionnage et de nous tenir en haleine jusqu’au bout.
June 9, 2010
The narrative was outstandingly descriptive, successfully creating mental images that were so realistic you believed in the time and place about which Bromell was writing. I will definitely be reading more of his work.
September 10, 2013
Great spy novel in the Graham Greene/leCarre/Robert Littel mold. Too bad he left novel writing for TV writing and show running. Then, last year he died. Still, he left an impressive body of work across several different media. Rest in Peace and thanks.
January 26, 2011
For those who enjoy smart character driven espionage tales (like Le Carre, Charles McCarry) and also the works of Michael Chabon.
April 30, 2018
Mack Hopper, agent de la CIA, arrive au Korach en 1957 avec sa femme et leur jeune fils Terry. Sa mission est de tisser des liens avec le jeune roi de ce pays sans ressources mais déterminant pour l'influence américaine au Moyen-Orient. Il se rapproche peu à peu du souverain plein de charme jusqu'à ce que ce dernier soit mystérieusement assassiné. Quarante ans plus tard, Terry, devenu historien, entreprend des recherches sur ce qui s'est passé au Korach. Petit à petit, il explore souvenirs et archives de cette petite Amérique du bout du monde pour trouver la clé du mystère qui entoure la mort du roi et, surtout, découvrir quel fut le rôle de son père dans cette affaire. Little America questionne la politique étrangère américaine, mais ce roman envoûtant met surtout en scène la quête d'un fils cherchant à comprendre qui est réellement son père.
December 31, 2018
Mack Hopper, agent de la CIA, arrive au Korach en 1957 avec sa femme et leur fils Terry. Sa mission est de tisser des liens avec le jeune roi de ce pays sans ressources, mais déterminant pour l’influence américaine au Moyen-Orient. Il se rapproche peu à peu du souverain plein de charme jusqu’à ce que ce dernier soit mystérieusement assassiné. Quarante ans plus tard, Terry, devenu historien, entreprend des recherches sur ce qui s’est passé au Korach. Petit à petit, il explore souvenirs et archives de cette petite Amérique du bout du monde pour trouver la clé du mystère qui entoure la mort du roi et, surtout, découvrir quel fut le rôle de son père dans cette affaire.
December 11, 2023
This book had and interesting and thoughtful message, even if I had no idea what the author was getting at until over halfway through. I liked the complex ideas woven in with the cold war storyline, which did tend to drag on a little bit, especially in the beginning. However, when the pieces started to come together, I was more into it. Not a fan of the main character’s issues with his dad, seemed like they could have been written in a stronger way. Overall, this wasn’t bad and covered an interesting topic, and was probably worth the five bucks I spent on it.
July 21, 2019
A delightful little book that took me some time to get through.
September 1, 2018
Un thriller exigeant, expatrié en pleine guerre froide dans une micromonarchie Arabique qui se voudrait imaginaire... quoique !
June 6, 2014
It did not really take me a month to read this book - I read a book club book and some other stuff at the same time (something I don't usually do). For its genre, I thought Little America was very good. It was interesting, the characters were well-drawn, and it moved along quite well, if a bit slowly from time to time. Since I was growing up in the era in which this book takes place, I especially enjoyed it. I had a good sense for the characters, the locations, etc. The plot was plausible, and there was enough suspense to keep my attention.
October 26, 2011
The author writes for television: Homicide: life on the Streets, Chicago Hope, I'll fly away. Here he tells a mystery story that wraps around a man's hunt for his emotionally distant father who may have had a man murdered in the service of the CIA. Bromell does a good job of evoking the paranoid American zeitgeist of the early cold war era. They story moves along well if at a moderate pace. Read it if that era and plot appeal to you.
February 26, 2016
The son of a retired CIA agent, himself now a middle-aged historian, researches the past in an effort to understand his father’s involvement and culpability in events leading to the assassination of the young king of Kurash, a fictitious Middle Eastern country subsumed into Syria and Iraq after the king’s death. Very well done portrayal of the behind the scenes machinations and sometimes unexpected results of American efforts to steer the course of history in the cold war era.
December 25, 2008
After picking this up several times I finally had the opportunity to read it. The language is bad in places, but the historical context is fascinating. This book has heightened my interest in Middle East culture and history. It's a good story as well.
May 7, 2009
Lots of interesting history of Egypt and Gamal Abdul I-Nasser's "Arab Socialism. The setting sent me on a hunt for pictures and info on the places mentioned. I also checked out some of the events that occured.
March 29, 2015
Complicated and thought-provoking. If you have ever wondered what it means when CIA 'involvement' in another country is discussed, read this book. It's an eye-opener.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews