I wished I loved this book, but I was a little disappointed. I'm a fan of Alexis de Tocqueville, the social and political theorist, upon whom the book was based, and so I was very excited to get this one. The book follows Olivier de Garmont - the Tocqueville character - and his manservant, John Larrit, or Parrot as he's known, to America as they seek asylum from what seems to be an impending war in France. Olivier, born to a French aristocratic family, went to the U.S. ostensibly to study prisons but in reality not to get caught up in a second revolution that may cost him his head. Parrot is sent to keep track of him and to be his mother's spy. Things in the U.S. are not what they expected. Both Parrot and Olivier are struck by the seeming unhierarchical nature of the American class system, each of whom is unprepared to fit into this system, although for different reasons. The novel follows them as they make sense of and fall in love with this new land.

I guess I was disappointed with the book because Olivier didn't seem much like the Tocqueville I know. His writings, which eventually turned into the classic Democracy in America, are produced almost frivolously. The character, Olivier, is lacking in any sort of depth, paralyzed in serious thought by French class system. While I certainly agree with Carey that Tocqueville's writings were filtered through his own French experience of attainment and value, I just couldn't imagine that someone as infantile as the Olivier in this book could write something as monumental and important as Democracy in America. That said, I thought the Parrot character was more convincing.