Robert Girardi (1) (1961–)

Gorgeous East is a wide ranging adventure story filled with characters that should be despised by readers, but are likeable instead. The redeeming factor for these rogues is the company they keep, the French Foreign Legion. They come from all over the world, except France, with histories of criminal activity, drug and alcohol addiction, and general moral turpitude. But Robert Girardi describes their lives beautifully in sympathetic detail. The depraved backgrounds of the legionnaires have a show more common denominator, the conscious and unconscious desire for punishment and redemption. The very harsh training and discipline of the Legion allows the members to earn something they have never had, honor.

Called upon by the French government and the United Nations to take up hopeless military causes, Legionnaires risk their lives only for their unit. The mercenaries identify the Legion as their country not the state ordering them to combat. The potentially grim story is filled with humor and references to art and music even when the characters are on the edge of death. This makes the novel entertaining and interesting for its three hundred plus pages. It is a wonderful work by Girardi.

The violence in the book is outrageous and gratuitous putting the characters in an introspective dilemma. Are they degenerate absurd nihilists like the enemies they fight in the miserable Sahara, or is there some part of their antisocial lives that they can hold as worthwhile? The French Foreign Legion offers them a rugged sanctuary, but does it give them something to believe in? Ostensibly, there are no simple existential answers so many just drink and don't think. However, they do not turn into nihilists but rather embrace the illusion of the Legion, the shade of what they believe was once great. The Gorgeous East with its temptations, allures, gargoyles, and wild freedom is held in fee by their call in times of hopeless danger "a moi la Legion." show less

I very rarely read novels written by men anymore, but for some reason I picked this one off my shelf (after a fifteen year snooze there) and I am so glad that I did. It is simply one of the best novels I've ever read.

It didn't strike me that way in the beginning, though it was good enough. We meet Ned Conti, a rather directionless, down at the heels graduate student who gets a job finding documentation to support the canonization of a nun who died nearly a century ago. The past seems to show more have it in for Mr. Conti; his apartment is haunted by a female spirit, and he himself is haunted by the memory of a short but intense affair with a woman named Antoinette, in New Orleans ten years before.

Antoinette Rivaudais is indeed unforgettable. A raven-haired, pill-popping, charismatic, lost, wayward rich girl, she captured Ned's heart and mine as well. She is so flawed, but so heartbreakingly so. In time, the ghost reveals what she wants, and Antoinette reappears in Ned's life. It may kill him or save him to pursue the three interwoven storylines (counting the nun) to their resolution. I'll just say that, by the time I closed the book, I knew I would never forget it. show less

This book is about three men in the French Foreign Legion. It details the brutality of the Legion and its hold on its men. One of the main characters is an officer born into a noble family. Another is a young American who joins while in the grip of depression over his lost love and his pitiful life. The third is a sergeant from Canadian. The three, at various times in the book, engage in fighting against a new African threat in the form of a new group of fanatical killers. The three also show more fall in love with the same woman.
Girardi's characterization is excellent; the main characters are all quite different and interesting. The plot takes some unusual turns along the way and serves to keep the reader engaged throughout the book.
Three out of five stars show less

A friendly page-turner set in Brooklyn, New Orleans and the parishes of southern Lousisiana. A young historical researcher has a ghost problem in his ancient, run-down, Brooklyn apartment. In the meantime, he is hired by the priest of a local church to find evidence of sainthood for a nun who lived and worked in the neighborhood two hundred years ago. The researcher also has a history of his own.

This was Girardi's first novel, and in places the book certainly reads like a first novel, with, show more for instance, metaphors sometimes skirting, or even crossing, the line between effective and "trying too hard" and a somewhat overwrought story-within-the-story romance.

However, all-in-all, this was a comfortable read for, say, a relaxed, rainy weekend. It works fine as an easy, "don't have to think too hard" experience. And I don't want to over-state the case: I was interested in the characters and the storyline, and there was plenty of engaging writing, as well. show less