#1 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE
A picaresque, swashbuckling adventure. The Washington Post Book World
They re an odd pair, to be sure: pale, rail-thin, black-clad Zelikman, a moody, itinerant physician fond of jaunty headgear, and ex-soldier Amram, a gray-haired giant of a man as quick with a razor-tongued witticism as with a sharpened battle-ax. Brothers under the skin, comrades in arms, they make their rootless way through the Caucasus Mountains, circa a.d. 950, living as they please and surviving however they can as blades and thieves for hire and as practiced bamboozlers, cheerfully separating the gullible from their money. But when they are dragooned into service as escorts and defenders to a prince of the Khazar Empire, they soon find themselves the half-willing generals in a full-scale revolution on a road paved with warriors and whores, evil emperors and extraordinary elephants, secrets, swordplay, and such stuff as the grandest adventures are made of.
Praise for Gentlemen of the Road
Within a few pages I was happily tangled in [Chabon s] net of finely filigreed language, seduced by an old-school-style swashbuckling quest . . . laced with surprises and humor. San Francisco Chronicle
[Chabon] is probably the premiere prose stylist the Updike of his generation. Time
The action is intricate and exuberant. . . . It s hard to resist its gathering momentum, not to mention the sheer headlong pleasure of Chabon s language. The New York Times Book Review
[A] wild, wild adventure . . . abounds with lush language . . . This book roars to be read aloud. Chicago Sun-Times
