picture of James McCracken

James McCracken


MP3 File
 

James Earle McCracken was born in 1960 in Takoma Park, Maryland.  He received a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982.  After a brief but nonetheless tedious stint as a technical writer, McCracken moved to London in 1984 with the intention of becoming a writer of short stories and novels.  He failed.  Returning to the U.S. at the end of 1986, McCracken resumed real life.  Twenty-two years later, he published his first novel - Rue de la Pompe: A Satiric Urban Fantasy.  He is married to the former Mirella Abdel Sater, a prominent attorney and human rights activist from Beirut, Lebanon, and has a daughter, Jamie, who is a junior at Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Virginia.

Rue de la Pompe: A Satiric Urban Fantasy

James Earle McCracken
iUniverse (2008)
ISBN 9780595485055
Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (7/08) 


Read the review on ReaderViews.com


Synopsis: Celebrating his thirtieth birthday alone in Paris, American businessman Michael Whyte realizes that it s entirely possible to live an unglamorous life in the most glamorous city in the world. But an unexpected gift of formal wear followed by a party invitation from his eccentric neighbors lands him in a curious search for the first French franc a coin said to be incredibly valuable and wickedly dangerous.

Guided by a deaf-mute and mentored by an epistemologist, Michael careens across the city in his quest for the coin. From the Chateau de Vincennes and the Musée d Orsay to the sewers of Paris and the base of the Eiffel Tower, he braves the city for an answer to the perplexing question of the franc s true nature.

Assisting, thwarting, or simply confusing him along the way is a bizarre collection of lunatic personalities, including a Castilian hit man, a Zen Buddhist Swiss jeweler, a flatulent statue of Benjamin Franklin, a foul-mouthed rhinoceros, the Concierge from Hell, and an enigmatic beauty named Chione.

Unforgettable characters and vivacious details make James Earle McCracken's debut novel sizzle with expectation. Both hilarious and introspective, Rue de la Pompe is a fast-paced ride through the City of Lights with a hapless American who is caught in an exhilarating journey of discovery.