Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Book Summary and Reviews of We Are Now Beginning Our Descent by James Meek

We Are Now Beginning Our Descent by James Meek

We Are Now Beginning Our Descent

by James Meek

  • Published:
  • May 2008, 352 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

The world around journalist and would-be novelist Adam Kellas is cracking. As a war correspondent in the Afghan mountains during post-9/11 operations, Kellas reports on prescheduled surgical strikes with a nagging sense of complicity. At dinner parties in chic North London, he uneasily joins the debate of the wars from the comfort of their immaculate dinner tables. Divorced, unstable, spurned by his lover and publishing houses from Paris to New York, Kellas embarks on a strange and difficult journey that will lead him to a tiny rural town near the Chesapeake Bay. There, the elusive American reporter Astrid, with whom Kellas shared one passionate night, waits for him, holding a glimmer of hope for Kellas’ life but also an unsettling secret. We Are Now Beginning Our Descent spans continents, cultures, and classes, brilliantly weaving together the hypocrisies, foibles, and passions of the way we live now.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Meek's novel exhibits some irritating tendencies—a muddled narrative line, a romance with a few cloying moments and overindulgent digressions into philosophy—but Kellas's unraveling is deliciously enjoyable, and Meek's crafting of character and setting is often masterful. The result is a book that demands much patience from the reader, but delivers rewards in return." - Publishers Weekly.

This information about We Are Now Beginning Our Descent was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

James Meek

James Meek is also the author of The People’s Act of Love.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Our Evenings
    Our Evenings
    by Alan Hollinghurst
    Alan Hollinghurst's novel Our Evenings is the fictional autobiography of Dave Win, a British ...
  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.