The Coup: A NovelThe Coup describes violent events in the imaginary African nation of Kush, a large, landlocked, drought-ridden, sub-Saharan country led by Colonel Hakim Félix Ellelloû. (“A leader,” writes Colonel Ellelloû, “is one who, out of madness or goodness, takes upon himself the woe of a people. There are few men so foolish.”) Colonel Ellelloû has four wives, a silver Mercedes, and a fanatic aversion—cultural, ideological, and personal—to the United States. But the U.S. keeps creeping into Kush, and the repercussions of this incursion constitute the events of the novel. Colonel Ellelloû tells his own story—always elegantly, and often in the third person—from an undisclosed location in the South of France. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - mrtall - LibraryThingIn honor of John Updike’s passing, I decided to have a go at the one big-name book from his writing prime that I’d never read: The Coup. And I’m certainly glad I did. Writing in the mid-1970s, Updike ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - ben_a - LibraryThingWords, words words. It has technique, but lacks what Bruce Lee, in that first scene of "Enter the Dragon," describes as 'emotional content.' I stopped after the first 50 pages. Maybe I'll come back to it, but I doubt it. 12.29.07 Read full review

