MAN PICKS FLOWERS

Roger King was born in Enfield North London. He is the author of five previous novels, Horizontal Hotel, Written on a Stranger’s Map, Sea Level, Love and Fatigue in America, and the award winning, A Girl From Zanzibar. His international work with the UN has taken him to twenty countries, and includes making documentary films with indigenous peoples. These days his time is equally divided between Leverett, Massachusetts, London, and his sailing boat, Iona.

“Man Picks Flower is instantly compelling; I read it in two days. A fusion of international intrigue and familial longing, Roger King’s beguiling new novel is something rare: a spy thriller with a loudly beating heart.” —Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer prizewinning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad, Manhattan Beach, and The Candy House

“Roger King may well have invented the espionage novel of ideas. Man Picks Flower is at once fast-paced and contemplative, a riveting inquiry into the mysterious power of memory and regret.” —Jess Walter, #1, New York Times bestseller, National Book Award finalist, author of Beautiful Ruins and The Cold Millions

“I loved every moment I spent reading Roger King’s Man Picks Flower. It’s tense, atmospheric, elegantly written and impossible to put down. King reminds me of another novelist whose work I revere perhaps above all others—namely, Graham Greene.” —Steve Yarbrough, prizewinning author of Stay Gone Days and The Unmade World

“An intriguing, gripping and gracefully written story, Man Picks Flower raises questions about the cost of skewed power dynamics — both global and interpersonal — and the possibility of forgiveness, that linger long after the book is over.” —Sharon Guskin, International Bestselling author of The Forgetting Time

“I was swept away by this elegantly written and fast paced novel of suspense and intrigue set in the US, Britain, Brazil and Pakistan, with its fascinating characters torn between trust and betrayal as they strive to build a family based on love.” —Virginia Pye, award-winning author of The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann and River of Dust

1. Man Picks Flower has been described as a “spy novel,” but it dwells on other aspects of life. What do you think are the main concerns of the novel?
2. Of the three main characters, John, Deva and Harry, who do you most like and who do you find most interesting? Why do you think the author gave us three points of view rather than one?
3. John, Deva and Harry come three different corners of the world with very different cultures. What are the differences, and what do they find in common?
4. The book’s structure is complex, covering a range of times and places. Did this maintain your interest, or was it confusing? Why do you think the author chose this structure?
5. What is your opinion of the quality of the writing? Does the style vary throughout the novel, and why do you think this might be? Do you have any favorite scenes or quotations?
6. The sexual encounter between John and Veronica in Amazonia affects them differently over time and has consequences throughout the book. What do you make of the encounter and what do you think in the truest interpretation?
7. Deva comes to believe that memory is imagination by another name, and that our memories are unreliable and indicate as much about the rememberer as about truth. Do you agree, and are their instances from you own lives of selective and imagined memories.
8. What effect does memory loss have on Harry’s personality, and how do these personal qualities affect John and Deva?
9. John is idealistic but becomes complicit in America’s covert violence during the Cold War. Is he a good man, or a bad man?
10. How do you think John’s encounter with Veronica in Amazonia might have led to Deva’s heroin addiction? What part do global events play?
11. In the novel America’s geopolitical decisions about Proxy Wars in distant places reach down into the families of Deva and Harry, and a generation later are still shaping Deva’s and Harry’s outer and inner lives. Can you think of any ways that such distant events have affected your lives, or the lives of those close to you?
12. In the story, love and espionage are contending forces. For the main characters love seems to win. Was this ending satisfying and what do you think might happen to the characters in later years?
13. Is Harry Christ-like figure? What might make him so?