Rating: 
Summary: Another Yank seduced by a green and pleasant land
Review: It's late summer 1909 in Liverpool and a Yank steps off the boat from America. Mark Franklin is an authentic Westerner, his luggage containing Stetson, saddle, gun belt and two .44 Remington pistols. I've been to England many times, and I love it. Unfortunately, my family's roots are not in the UK, nor have I had the longed-for opportunity to take up permanent residence there. In MR. AMERICAN, it's Franklin's great good luck to have made a fortune from a Nevada silver mine. This allows him to return to England in search of his roots - his forebears having immigrated to the Colonies hundreds of years before - and purchase the house, Manor Lancing, which dominates the Lincolnshire village of his ancestors, Castle Lancing. I learned in English Lit 1A that every novel incorporates a conflict, which, in MR. AMERICAN, is subtle. To modern fiction readers, fed a steady diet of lurid murders-most-foul, global conspiracies, and courtroom duels, it may not seem like much of a conflict at all. Author George MacDonald Fraser, a Brit himself, has chosen to introduce into Edwardian society of pre- WWI England a rugged individualist matured in the late-19th century American West, and develop what happens. The WASP values that Franklin possesses from such a background - chivalry, self-reliance, forthrightness, loyalty, lack of class pretension, suspicion of authority - are occasionally at odds with the upper class social circle that soon adopts him. For the reader, Mark will present as an appealing, stand-up fellow. The book is populated with interesting characters: Samson, Franklin's gentleman's gentleman; Pip, the effervescent West End stage actress; King Edward VII; Lady Helen Cessford, the militant suffragette; Peggy, the daughter of an impoverished country squire; Kid Curry, the unwelcome visitor from Franklin's ... um, shall we say, irregular past. And above all, there's the outrageous and aging rascal, General Harry Flashman, the hero of a whole other series of books by author Fraser. I was undecided for a bit on the number of stars to award this novel - 3 or 4. At almost 600 pages, it isn't the type of book that keeps one riveted. The dramatic moments are occasional and of short duration, and there are a lot of loose ends that would have made an absorbing sequel inasmuch as the storyline ends in 1914 with the outbreak of the war. (Since MR. AMERICAN was published in 1981, no sequel has been written to my knowledge. Pity.) In the final reckoning, I gave it four stars because it's about an American who finds "home" and adventure of sorts in a green and pleasant land. I'm envious.
Rating:
Summary: Fine change of pace by George MacDonald Fraser
Review: Mark Franklin, once an outlaw, had earned a fortune in the silver mines of Nevada, but had always romanticized England because of the tales of his family's descent from there, and from images of the Shakespeare he loved. So, with his fortune secure, in 1909, he visits England to make his home in the small village his ancestors came from. He falls into aristocratic company, and meets everyone from the King to Winston Churchill to Sir Harry Flashman. Though he meets his future wife in that society, he eventually realizes that his wife isn't much better then the rest of the corrupt society. Having found little silver and much tarnish in England, and with World War I drawing near, he must decide: should he stay or should he go? And besides, there's always that outlaw past, ready to try to bite him . . . Fascinating book, as Fraser displays an intimate knowledge of that era. It wasn't always that easy to understand Franklin's motives, and easy sometimes to laugh at his naivete, but I guess I'm not as straight a shooter as he was. My loss, not his. Well worth reading, though it bogs down just a little bit in the middle.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the finest books I've ever read
Review: Mr. Fraser has a fabulous ability to mix history and fiction, and paints wonderful pictures, builds complex, realistic characters, and has great narrative skills. I have never read anything that I have enjoyed more. I recommend it strongly to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Slow Waters Run Deep
Review: Some years before the beginning of World War One, Mr Franklin arrives in England, carrying two Remington revolvers and a bank draft worth a fortune. Fraser uses this auspicious beginning to give us a view of Edwardian society from top to bottom, its highs and lows, its glories and its hypocrisies. Mr Franklin has come to England to seek out the village from which his ancestors had emigrated in the 17th Century and to settle there; if ha has any expectations at all, it is that he will live a quiet life in a small, sleepy village. Of course, this is not what happens -- and thereby hang four stars worth of reading enjoyment. From his accidental but most enjoyable encounter with London showgirl Pip, to his accidental but portentous encounter with a distinguished gentleman in the country who, despite his incognito, has a rather royal manner, through his brushes with Fraser's charming rotter, the elderly but still randy Harry Flashman (the young Churchill runs a bit shy of Sir Harry) and a hair-raising reminder of his past in America, Mr Franklin takes it all in stride, with a slightly bewildered interest... It takes love to disturb him sufficiently that he will take decisive action. An action that will be silhouetted against the backdrop of the beginning of World War One and its time. This is not the rollicking romp that the Flashman books are, nor is it the cheerful, sometimes touching military fiction of "The General Danced at Dawn" and Fraser's other "Dand McNeill" stories... But it is a picture of a fascinating time and place that seems so recent in some ways and so long ago in others, a picture that helps to open and illuminate that time and place for the modern reader as, slowly but surely, it slips from living memory into "recent history", about which, if, as has been said, "the past is a different country", one can say that recent history is a foreign contry that lies just outside our own borders. And, as when one visits such deceptively familiar but ultimately foreign places, one is advised to engage the services of a reliable native guide and translator to get the maximum enjoyment out of your visit. Accept Mr Fraser's offer to act in that capacity, and travel back to that time...
Rating:
Summary: Flashman style with heavier substance
Review: Speaking as an afficianado of the Flashman Papers' author, I can promise that loyal readers of Mr. Fraser hungry for more of his far too infrequent masterpieces of historical fiction will not be disappointed. However, I cannot promise they won't be confused. Mr. American is not an adventure yarn a la the Flashman series although a nonegenarian Sir Harry makes a few delightful cameos. rather an allegorical look at turn of the century English life, as the Victorian age slips away and the horrors of WW I approach. Mr. American himself, a rootless wanderer of the West returning to the village his ancestors left in the 17th century, is seeking the foundation he has never found, carrying with him a fortune dug out of the Nevada ground. Along the way, he finds himelf drawn into upper class Mayfair society, confronts his past, and ultimately decides his future as Europe begins its Great War. Those used to the Flashman books may be unsatisfied with the ending, with plot threads seemingly left unresolved. However, taken as a commentary rather than an adventure story, Mr. American provides fascinating insight into its age and it's well rounded title character. Perhaps those threads were left dangling with thought of a sequel, which would certainly be welcomed by this reviewer.
Rating:
Summary: Longer, deeper than the Flashman Papers, but not as funny.
Review: The premise of Mr. American is straight out of the topsy turvy world of The Flashman Papers: A rich, mysterious American shows up at his family's ancestral village in England and buys the local manor. Flashman himself even shows up a time or two. But here the similarity ends. This is a deep, slow moving novel that still fascinated me to the point that I stayed up reading it long into the night. Bottom line: Good, but not great. It falls into the trap of exposing Edwardian "society" for the farce that it was without being either as funny or entertaining as Flashman or as penetrating as more serious social commentary.
Rating:
Summary: Anglophile or phobe?
Review: This is a great book, particularly if you are an American,live in England and are a closet wild west buff. I enjoyed every page of this book.
Rating:
Summary: Pure Pleasure
Review: This was my first "non-Flashman" book by Fraser, and I was joyously stunned by the high level of writing. Someone called it "the perfect male romantic novel," and that hits the mark very well. If someone had described the plot to me, I'd have passed it by as sounding like a bit of a bore, but luckily no-one tried to describe it to me beforehand, and having just finished it, I'd rank it among one of the best novels I've read--and that's a lot of novels. So if anyone tells you that the bulk of it is about romance, Edwardian high-society hobnobbing, and marital difficulties, do not let that put you off! It is a d--ned fine book! And Flashy shows up now and then, ironically turning out to be one of the most moral characters to be found. The old goat just gets better--and more wicked--with age. One quibble: The Carrol & Graf 1998 edition is *full* of apostrophe/quotation-mark errors, probably resulting from an attempt to translate British punctuation standards to American ones by way of a simple "find-and-replace" command on computer, and very cursory typo-checking afterward. I know I must sound like the school teacher I am, but it is sloppy and distracting, and sometimes makes for difficult reading--and is easily avoidable. I really don't think we Americans have much trouble at all understanding British punctuation or spelling, so American publishers should just leave well enough alone when printing British books. Of course this complaint is no reflection on the author at all--in fact, this novel has raised him greatly in my estimation, and he was already rather high.
Rating:
Summary: good old fashioned story telling
Review: When I hear someone say " curl up with a good book" , I'm never sure what they mean until I read Mr. American. This book kept my interest to the end which was 500 pages later. It is just good old fashioned story telling with characters you care about. I became so engrossed, that whenever "our hero " said or did something I thought he would regret, I found my self yelling out loud, exhorting him to reconsider. Good stuff !
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