Interesting topic, yet not entirely satisfying.

Michael Frame - alias Chris Carver - is the narrator of the story, which deals with his life as a member of the radicalising peace/hippy movement in the 1960's and '70's and his life as a fugitive in the 1990's. The book has an interesting chronology, skipping through time, backward and forward, which makes it lively. It tries to work out how the mainly peaceful alternative subculture of the 1960's radicalised into an extremist and violent movement in the 1970's.

The Chris Carver character is a kind of observer; he is involved, yet he remains vague to the reader. It seems as if his main drives are a vague notion of having to improve society and a crash on a powerful girl. So on the one hand, he is the main character, on the other hand, he isn't really, because he is mainly observing others and events happening around him. I guess this is why I had troubles connecting to the story, or to the main character. I felt as if I was reading a chronology of events. Demonstrations. Meetings. Actions. Attacks. But I missed the inner development of the main character. Also his flight to Asia, his addiction, stay at a monastery, return to England and his undercover existence seemed a bit unlikely and cliché.
So I enjoyed this novel less than I thought I would ( )

This works as a story if I can distance myself from it as something I want to be authentic. Having lived many years as a fugitive I don't think Kunzru quite captures it. The lead character seems incredibly vague politically and the scenes of him with his adopted daughter really don't work for me. The notion of him informing and then running away seems like an author's plot twist device rather than something that feels authentic. But when I stand back from my desire for it to be authentic the book has some coherence and the tension holds throughout. ( )

Audiobook. This book set an interesting challenge for itself. First person. Back and forth beginning with the present. This is the story of a 60s radical who became involved in bombings, etc. Eventually folks in his "cell" died. I'm always interested in stories that tell 60s and Vietnam from the sidelines. I spent the early 60s in Idaho and the late 60s at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. I first encountered the "60s" in 1970 in Seattle--a sitdown against Nixon at U of W. This book tells the story of the 60s from London. The hero escapes, takes a new name and a new life. And now the old life is coming back. I thought this was a very good book. A book about politics that wasn't a lecture. Interesting characters that left you thinking. I liked this book. ( )

The making and un-doing of a sixties/seventies radical in Great Britain. We meet Chris Carver, a.k.a. Mike Frame, on his 50th birthday as his 17-year cover is coming undone. As he drives around and his mind spins somewhat out of control (more "revolutions"), time becomes fluid. Kunzru deftly manages these movements between present and past so we come to understand the underpinnings of a radical as his personal history closes in on him. I felt as if I gained a real insight into a mindset and a lifestyle, one that will stick with me for a while. While the character of Miles--and his relationship with Chris--didn't ring true, the rest of the novel had a resonnance that made this a worthwhile read. ( )

Born in the early fifties Chris Carver escapes his Ruislip roots to a place at the LSE where he progresses from student politics to full-blown radical.

Weaving back and forth between London in the late sixties/seventies and small town southern-England early in the twenty-first century we gradually discover why Chris has taken on the identity of Mike Frame (using the classic method outlined in Frederick Forysth's Day of the Jackal) and settled into a comfortable but tenuous middle-class existence.

The further back in time events and characters are, the more vivid and engrossing they are. The present day proceedings seem very flat and less engaging. This may be deliberate – the narrative is presented as the recollections of a man whose 50th birthday has arrived, and often sections begin in the present and travel backwards as memories are sparked.

These recollections are brilliantly constructed and the writing is wonderful, but there are too many holes in the plot and the core incident, on which so much of the action rests, turns out to be a complete anti-climax. Also the central character Miles doesn't ring true and the sub-plot about smearing a New Labour MP with ambitions for the position of Home Secretary seems plausible, but the details don't add up.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed this a lot, in fact an awful lot, but it is a pretty flawed novel. ( )