The Foreign Service Journal, September 2004

minister or Secretary of State is —but he or she is the only senior official occupied full-time with that particular bilateral relationship. Rana’s detailed discussion of the contemporary ambassador’s role in both the external world and the domestic arena will (one hopes) not be news to American ambassadors, but is instructive nonetheless. Rana’s own career (including five ambassadorships in countries as dis- parate as Kenya and Germany), com- bined with extensive research, gives this book credibility. In particular, his experiences representing a major country in the (so-called) Non- Aligned World provide a refreshing perspective to occasionally ethnocen- tric American eyes. And the sheer breadth of coverage is impressive in itself, with chapter titles such as “The Transformed Plenipotentiary,” “Ritual and Re- form,” “Partners and Techniques,” “The Multilateral Ambassador,” “The Domestic Dimension,” and “Leader- ship in the Embassy.” As we all know, the State Department is not very diligent at professional education. (It does offer its personnel a certain amount of training to perform functions ranging from issuing visas to drafting memos and cables, but not much instruction in the meaning and pur- pose of diplomacy.) The 21st Century Ambassador could serve very well as a preparatory text, per- haps for the A-100 course, but cer- tainly for the DCM and ambas- sadors’ courses — or even for new senior political appointees in the State Department. The book has much to say and provides much thoughtful guidance on how to do effective diplomacy in today’s and tomorrow’s world. Also, by the way, Ambassador Rana is an excellent drafting officer. Ambassador Edward Marks, a retired FSO, is a former member of the Journal ’s Editorial Board. Turkish Tales Savarona J. Patrick Hart, PublishAmerica, 2004, $19.95, paperback, 218 pages. R EVIEWED BY S TEVEN A LAN H ONLEY It is a cliché that Foreign Service fiction is most often really thinly- veiled autobiography, with judicious changes to the historical record to render the protagonist more sympa- thetic or sagacious than was the case in real life. But this tale of interna- tional and bureaucratic intrigue, set mostly in Turkey, appears to be an exception to that rule, which is — to adopt classic State-speak — both good and bad. To get the only significant prob- lem with Savarona out of the way up front, its plot is hard to follow and makes very little sense. Nor does it help that J. Patrick Hart (the nom de plume of a current FSO) splits the narrator duties between George McCall, a well-meaning but troubled consular officer in Istanbul, and Bill Bigelow, the clas- sic American Citizens Services case from hell. Bigelow suffers from mental illness yet inexplicably man- ages to con several other characters, Turkish and American, into trusting him at crucial junctures. It may well be that Hart is thereby making a subtle point about the fragile psy- chological state of many Foreign Service employees, or the inherent unreliability of all storytellers, but if so, it eluded me. Nevertheless, I warmly recom- mend this novel to Foreign Service readers. Hart has a rare gift for mak- ing his characters three-dimensional (even if what some of them do is frankly unbelievable). The world- weary McCall, trying to decide whether he can both continue in the Foreign Service and save his foundering marriage, is an enor- mously sympathetic protagonist, and Bigelow, while too surreal for my taste, is not someone I will soon for- get, either. They are joined by a host of other vivid characters, major and minor, each with their own set of virtues and flaws. Hart also captures, as well as any Foreign Service writer I’ve ever encountered, the rhythm of life overseas, the excitement and ennui of consular work, and the tensions of balancing work and a personal life. And while I’ve never been to Turkey, his descriptions of the sights, sounds and smells of that exotic locale ring true, as well. The bottom line: if you’re look- ing for a plot-driven spy novel, this isn’t the book for you. But if you want to read about characters that every Foreign Service member has worked with, encountered, or been, S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 89 B O O K S Hart has a rare gift for making his characters three-dimensional, even if what they do is sometimes frankly unbelievable.