Handsome, unassuming Thomas Foley is an employee at the Central Office of Information whose particular biography (Belgian mother, pub-owning father) makes him just the man to oversee the "authentic British pub" that will be erected at the 1958 Brussels World&́#x80;s Fair. It&́#x80;s the first major expo after World War II, meant to signify unity, but there&́#x80;s inevitable intrigue involving the U.S. and Soviet delegations. In the shadow of an immense, imposingly modern structure called the Atomium, the married Foley becomes both agent and pawn&́#x80;when he&́#x80;s not falling head over heels for Anneke, his Belgian hostess.
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Publisher:
Boston : New Harvest ; ©2014.
Edition:
First U.S. Edition.
ISBN:
9780544343764
054434376X
054434376X
Characteristics:
viii, 274 pages ;,22 cm.
Alternative Title:
Expo fifty-eight.
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Sonjahv
Dec 21, 2014
Here, for the next six months, would be thrown together all the nations whose complex relationships, whose conflicts and alliances, whose fraught, tangled histories had shaped and would continue to shape the destiny of mankind. And this gigantic brilliant folly was at the heart of it: a gigantic latticework of spheres, interconnected, imperishable, each one emblematic of that tiny mysterious unit which man had so recently learned how to divide: the atom
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Add a CommentDull at times yet still, for some reason, mesmerizing. Leaves a bittersweet feeling in the mouth. As the stereotypical Belgian tends to be.
Expo 58 is a real event that took place in Brussels at the height of the Cold War. Everyone is trying to out do everyone else and try and find out everyone's secrets. Into this walks Thomas Foley a rather bored civil servant who is seduced by this world - a world away from suburbia with his wife and new baby. He finds himself in events that are comical and quite beyond his control. Well worth a read!