During the last days of the Balkan War in the summer of 1995, Anthony, a hapless American questioning the dot-com values that allow him to live a pampered existence in San Francisco, agrees to join Gisela, a beauty he barely knows, in a search for her son, lost in a Hungarian orphanage. In Budapest they meet Marsh, a brilliant but frustrated British war correspondent. Anthony thinks he has found in Eastern Europe what his former life was missing: enterprising young people openly questioning U.S. values, determined to remake their own world. But when an odd and edgy love triangle emerges and he discovers his mission with Gisela is much darker than he imagined, Anthony is thrown further in flux. Moving from the tattered romanticism of Budapest, through the sparkling Dalmatian coast, and into the brutalized landscape of inland Croatia, the novel takes a shocking turn of irreversible consequence. Radiant Days is held taut in the voice of Anthony, whose desire to experience a more serious (and thrilling) life leaves injury in its wake. With a swift plot and seamless style, Michael FitzGerald delivers a story of unattainable love, misplaced lust, and the politics of compassion. In his keenly accomplished first novel, FitzGerald's enigmatic tale of a feckless and dissolute American caught up in world events beyond his comprehension brings a disquieting new interpretation to the old adage that truth is the first casualty of war. At the height of San Francisco's dot-com revolution, Anthony unhesitatingly abandons his unfulfilling job to follow Gisela, a beautiful young woman he has only just met, back to her native Hungary, ostensibly on a mission to locate her missing son. Arriving during the perilous waning days of the Balkan War, the pair attach themselves to British journalist Marsh, who, at 24, already has attained a cynical disregard for humanity that endangers his two new friends. As Anthony falls more deeply in love with Gisela, Gisela's precise reasons for being in country dissolve into drug- and lust-induced escapades. Through Anthony's self-indulgent and alienated voice, FitzGerald flawlessly and astutely mirrors the ennui and confusion of a generation and world enervated by ceaseless and senseless images of war. Carol Haggas Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "...an old story, made fresh... with painful precision...." -- NYTBR, April, 2007 "FitzGerald can write, and he refuses to avert his eyes." -- San Francisco Chronicle, March, 2007 "FitzGerald has crafted a gripping tale---one that speeds up as it goes along....unmistakable literary talent." -- Missoula Independent "Radiant Days is the darkly funny and deeply unsettling story of a young man who falls down a Central European rabbit hole. It made me squirm, and I loved it." -- Vestal McIntyre, author of You Are Not The One "This skillfully written debut relates the dramatic journey of a young, San Francisco-based computer professional named Anthony. Easily seduced by beautiful Hungarian bartender Gisela, he agrees to travel with her to Hungary to find the son she abandoned in an orphanage. It soon becomes clear to Anthony that Gisela's journey is strictly a commercial venture to locate children for a black-market adoption agency so that she can pay off her debts and support a growing drug habit. Their journey then leads to the Dalmatian coast and the war-torn Balkans. There, Anthony temporarily leaves Gisela and joins British war correspondent Marsh, who is then killed by sniper fire while covering a story, leaving Anthony more puzzled than heartbroken. In many ways, Anthony's character symbolizes the face of America: he is insensitive to anything beyond his own pleasures and, unlike Marsh, incapable of finding "something worth dying for." Scenes of sexual cruelty and drug addiction are woven into a thoughtful if uncomfortable depiction of the spiritual bankruptcy of Americans. A gripping narrative that calls for self-examination, this is recommended for all collections." -- Library Journal, David A. Beronä, Plymouth State Univ., NH Michael A. FitzGerald holds an M.F.A. from the University of Montana and was been awarded the Fiction Fellow from University of Montana in 2000. He was also a Semi-Finalist Faulkner-Wisdom Contest in 2004 and currently lives in Idaho with his wife and daughter. The protagonist of Radiant Days, Michael A. FitzGerald's first novel, is a null, a clueless and selfish guy. The year is 1995, at the height of the dot-com boom and Anthony is a "producer" for an Internet startup. He spends his days listening to music, avoiding his colleagues and surfing the Web to find the grossest porn. "My highest aspiration: to jog," he tell us. Anthony has a girlfriend, whom he kinda-sorta loves, until they break up, and she sleeps with his best friend, and he humiliates her. About this, he feels kinda-sorta terrible. "My life had become silly," he declares. Then one evening he walks into his local b