Strether's Boy

Man Booker Prize Winner John Banville praised Berkman's last two novels in The Ambassadors Trilogy. For this prequel: "In Strether's Boy, a prequel to Henry James's The Ambassadors, Berkman has written another wonderful volume in his Ambassadorial trilogy, inventive, intricate and wholly persuasive. The Master would surely bestow his blessing on the venture." For the sequel, Banville says: "I'm greatly enjoying and admiring [this sequel]...I very like the fluent, fluid style and the intricacies of plotting of The Product of Woollett - a sly witty title, by the way. I'm particularly charmed by the way [it] manoeuvres [sic] James's tale and his characters into an aesthetically pleasing sequel to The Ambassadors...congratulations." Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked, says of the second novel in Berkman's The Ambassadors Trilogy, called In the Presence of Chad Himself: "...an amazing job...perfectly in charge of the narrative...it is succeeding wildly... and I'm delighted to [say] how much I enjoyed it." Strether's Boy is the first part of a trilogy inspired by Henry James's The Ambassadors. After this prequel comes In the Presence of Chad Himself as the "paraquel" (same time, plot and characters as the original James novel, but with a different narrative point of view, like Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz); and finally comes The Product of Woollett as the sequel to The Ambassadors.