Story Behind The Book
Armand Burke was born in the 1950s in a place whose name he does not care to remember. In his early twenties he found himself living in New York City and increasingly baffled by an obsession with China. At that time the Middle Kingdom was off-limits to Western travelers and in the midst of a political upheaval. After countless hours in the Far Eastern Collection of the New York Public Library, Burke realized that he would never find the truth about China in any of the usual places, least of all in China itself. Like Joseph Conrad describing a continent he had never visited, or Pierre Menard recreating Don Quixote word by word, he relocated his search, beyond outer appearances, to the deepest recesses of his own imagination. Sensing correctly that his discoveries in that chaotic region would be suppressed by the military/industrial/publishing complex, he wrote on the run--in an apartment in the Bronx, a basement in Colorado, a farmhouse in Vermont--while working as a bank messenger, an investigator and a storekeeper and reading the Illuminati trilogy. The result was The Great Leap Forward, which has been called "unequaled," "unparalleled" and "extraordinary," among other things. Today, except after a night of heavy drinking, he denies having written it. He lives on an island off the coast of Maine with two Siamese cats, three dogs, four pot-bellied pigs, and a Komodo dragon.
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<div class="pcr7" style="margin:15px 0 0 25px;"> <div class="pc" style="margin-right:30px;"> <div> <div style="margin-bottom:15px;"> <div class="drkgry"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.25pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;">5.0 out of 5 stars <a href="http://www.amazon.com/review/R3I2U5VTPNOY5P/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1481097466&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=283155&store=books"><strong><span style="color:#0000FF;">Hilarious Spy Spoof</span></strong></a> January 8, 2013 </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;">By <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1GEZTYIS9PY5B/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp"><span style="color:#0000FF;">Kelly Jameson (also writes as Ann Kelly)</span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;">Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;">The Great Leap Forward is not a traditional spy thriller; it's a spoof of spy novels, and it's very funny.<br /><br /> The author has created an iconic character in Luc "Le Duc" Duloup, who sets off for China in 1978 to investigate whether there's going to be a Great Leap Forward for mankind or a plot is afoot to take over the world. He moves around in a time of shadows, secret societies, and Pepsi addiction.<br /><br /> The story is Kafkaesque, with a volley of political satire and an intriguing investigation of personal identity. Fans of books with wry humor dusting almost every page, pulp noirish Fu Manchu novels, and stories with lots of quirky characters will like this book. Undeniably entertaining and addicting. I highly recommend it.<br /> --Kelly Jameson </span></p> </div> </div> <div class="fl"> <div class="fl clearboth"> <div style="margin:20px 0 0 0;"> <div class="mb30"> <div class="reviews"> <div class="mt9 reviewText"> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div>