false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1205696183m/2077497.jpg 2077497 7 From the author of the best-selling, universally acclaimed <i>The People’s Act of Love</i> comes the incisive and timeless story of a globe-trotting journalist’s perils in the pursuit of love, set against the war zones and dinner parties of today’s discordant and bewildering world stage. The world around journalist and would-be novelist Adam Kellas is cracking. As a war correspondent in the Afghan mountains during post-9/11 operations, Kellas reports on prescheduled surgical strikes with a nagging sense of complicity. At dinner parties in chic North London, he uneasily joins the debate of the wars from the comfort of their immaculate dinner tables. Divorced, unstable, spurned by his lover and publishing houses from Paris to New York, Kellas embarks on a strange and difficult journey that will lead him to a tiny rural town near the Chesapeake Bay. There, the elusive American reporter Astrid, with whom Kellas shared one passionate night, waits for him, holding a glimmer of hope for Kellas’ life but also an unsettling secret. <i>We Are Now Beginning Our Descent</i> spans continents, cultures, and classes, brilliantly weaving together the hypocrisies, foibles, and passions of the way we live now. 2082766 3 2008 We Are Now Beginning Our Descent total:60|5:0|4:1|3:3|2:0|1:0| 60 176 116 19 0 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 03 15:18:42 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 03 15:18:56 -0800 2009 "The theme of the West's (and journalism's) distanced overflight of the rest of the world is an arresting one, richly written and cleverly developed. But like a Strasbourg goose force-fed for its liver, the organic growth and mov...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:58:35 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:58:35 -0800 2009 While a few critics thought We Are Now Beginning Our Descent a worthy successor to The People's Act of Love, most of them felt that Meek's second novel lacked focus. Certainly, his topics are interesting‚Äîlove during wartime, the guilty complicity of journalists and their subjects, the West's power...

more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Aug 10 08:16:56 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 20 13:14:38 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 10 08:16:56 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jul 11 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 11 08:01:01 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 11 08:18:11 -0700 2008 ...more...]]> 2 0 false false Fri Mar 28 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 27 07:45:52 -0700 2008 Sat Mar 29 03:22:41 -0700 2008 The People's Act of Love is in for a disappointment. Like his previous novel, this one revolves around war - this time, though, he tells the story of a journalist stationed in Afghanistan, Adam Kellas, who falls in love with hard-to-peg A...more...]]> 1 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 15 05:54:39 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 28 08:58:04 -0800 2008
Evidently based on Meek's experiences in Afghanistan, it seems flawless in its detailing of place and ...more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue May 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 00:36:47 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 00:40:55 -0700 2009 The People's Act of Love.

Meek's lyric flare is subsumed by obvious signposting, unlikely and impossible events, and an incredible predictability.

I'm starting to wonder whether anyone should write novelists as characters after Philip Roth.]]> 3 0 false false Mon Oct 19 07:19:22 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 07:21:26 -0700 2009 1 0 false false Mon Aug 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 01 00:26:44 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 10 20:34:38 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sun May 25 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu May 01 09:40:49 -0700 2008 Wed May 28 07:34:38 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Aug 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 25 07:54:27 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 25 07:55:35 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Tue Apr 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 13 13:04:39 -0700 2009 Fri May 08 01:20:10 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sun Mar 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jan 10 12:24:31 -0800 2008 Mon Mar 17 17:46:25 -0700 2008 We Are Now Beginning Our Descent is not the novel to combat it, being a lesser novel to Meek’s p...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri May 30 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon May 12 08:00:57 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 02 08:13:41 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Fri Jan 30 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Dec 04 16:37:48 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 30 09:09:48 -0800 2009
This book was obviously written by man-- from the flat female characters to use of last names for characters. I was not interested in finding out what happened in the...]]> 2 0 false false Thu Jun 05 14:34:38 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 10 13:21:21 -0700 2008 2 0 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 24 08:09:03 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 24 08:10:00 -0700 2007 2 0 false false Fri Feb 06 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Dec 15 11:18:38 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 07 10:01:51 -0800 2009 1 0 false false Mon Jul 14 20:02:32 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 14 20:02:43 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Tue Nov 17 05:40:26 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 03 12:54:06 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 03 12:54:06 -0800 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=2077497