The amateur American

Sometimes the hardest boundaries to see . . .are the ones you've already crossed.Twenty-nine-year-old Jeffrey Delanne is teaching English in France but having a tough time stretching his measly paycheck one month to the next. When he's not worrying about his bar tab, he's struggling with the language, trying to justify his country's "imperialist" actions to every French person in sight, and wondering just what the hell he's doing abroad. Desperate for a few quick euros, Jeffrey takes on some translating work for an eccentric Arab businessman. But the job turns ugly, and Jeffrey is forced to do things he never thought himself capable of, torn among guilt, a host of criminal impulses, and a haunting paranoia he'd never known back home.But maybe it's not just paranoia. Soon Jeffrey's colleagues, his students, and even the women in his life begin hinting at dark secrets, and Jeffrey starts to suspect that he's been lured into a brutal game whose implications go far beyond this unassuming corner of the world.Now his life may depend on his willingness to transform himself into something--someone--who'll stop at nothing to survive.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.