A literary novel set in Cambodia just prior to the triumph of the Khmer Rouge. It is a powerful portrayal of
a clash of values.

It is 1969, and businessman Bill Bolton decides to surprise his wife with a birthday trip to the ancient temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. They will be the first American tourists there since Jackie Kennedy. Getting a visa to a country that borders war-torn Vietnam requires milking some very high-level connections in Washington. Accompanied by a female English guide, a draft-dodging young pilot and an elderly French passenger, their daytrip turns to disaster when their small plane crashes and they are stranded like castaways in the jungle.

Eventually they are found by local villagers who take them to the relative safety of their own Shangri La. Here, cut off from the outside world, they fall into the seductive lifestyle of the primitive Khmers. But as the Vietnam War spreads into Cambodia their paradise reveals a darker side with the appearance of the brutal Khmer Rouge militia.

A Model American is a story in which an American abroad tries to “improve” a primitive culture through the introduction of capitalist ideas. It is a multi-dimensional parable of the clash between East and West, and American foreign policy.


From the Hardcover edition.