American Skin
Houghton Mifflin, 1984

[Below: Dust jacket flap text]

"A dramatic novel of expatriate high life set on Spain's Costa del Sol, American Skin is a bittersweet love story about the rich and the homeless, and the complex fabric of love and circumstance.

At the story's center is David Brandt, a handsome Californian who comes to Marbella to soothe the wounds of a recently ended affair and to escape from the memories that haunt him. Self-exiled amid the opulent glamour of this seaside resort, Brandt wants only to put his life back together, and to forget. Days and nights spent with affluent foreigners and the intrigues of international commerce, however, lead him to Hope Clarendon. The beautiful and mysterious American wife of a powerful British tycoon, Hope is tied to her husband despite his neglect and infidelities, and Brandt is unwittingly drawn into a romantic involvement that he cannot afford. When Max Clarendon suddenly returns to Marbella, an afternoon confrontation turns into a near-fatal accident at sea. less than twenty-four hours later, an ironic turn of events culminates in a tragic crime of passion.

In his sixth novel, peter Viertel explores the search of the homeless for a place to belong and the pleasure of fulfillment, The powerful and mature voice of Viertel, the intoxicating and exotic scenes of the cost of Spain, make this masterly, well-crafted novel a compelling story of love, tragedy, and survival.

Peter Viertel was born in Dresden in 1920 and was raised in Hollywood. He is the acclaimed author of five previous novels, among them White Hunter, Black Heart and Bicycle on the Beach. He lives with his wife, actress Deborah Kerr, in Klosters, Switzerland, and Marbella, Spain, where American Skin is set."

Excerpt from the book:

Brandt stood with his back to the Mediterranean and looked up and down the Paseo Marttimo as if he had never been there before in his life. The name of the place he was try- ing to find was El Faro. He was sure of that much, as he had had breakfast there every morning for a month only a few years ago. There had been a lighthouse a block down the street, from which the restaurant had obviously derived its name, a small, brown, rec- tangular house with a white tower at its far end that had served as a landmark for the fishing boats that worked a few miles out during the night. Now there was a long row of high apartment buildings facing the water, and the first of the skyscrapers, the ground floor of which had housed the restaurant, was lost in the crowd. It seemed incredible to Brandt that the town could have changed that much in so short a time, and for a moment he thought he had come down the wrong street. Yet the old port was there, although the sea wall protecting the yacht harbor had been extended. It stretched out over four blocks, and Brandt realized that he would have to walk the whole length of it in order to locate El Faro and keep his appointment with Guy Manning.

He glanced at his watch. It was a quarter to eight, and except for an old man fishing, there was not a soul in sight whom he could .ask. If the restaurant had gone out of business, Guy would cer- tainly not have agreed to meet him there when they made their date on the telephone the previous night. The morning sun was al- ready quite hot on his back, giving promise of a sweltering summer day. The breeze was from the east. Levante, Brandt said to himself, remembering that you lived by the wind on that coast, and that the east wind was the most benign of the prevailing winds, and the least dangerous.

He started slowly up the street, occasionally checking the build- ings on his right. The view to his left was a more pleasing one, with the long line of pleasure boats moored along the gray cement sea wall, their pennants fluttering lazily. There was a graffito visible behind the masts of a dilapidated old schooner. Viva Tejero! it read in tribute to the hero of the comic-opera coup d'etat of the previous winter. iFascistas! iHYos deputas! another spray-can art- ist had squirted in reply a little farther along. The handwriting on the wall, Brandt thought, the lunatic fringes of the extreme right and left giving their warnings that another upheaval might soon mar Spain's future.

He may have come back at just the wrong moment, Brandt re- flected. It had all changed so much. It was no longer the pleasant little white town it had been when he and Pamela had come there five or six years ago. La Fonda, the hotel at which they had stayed, was a restaurant now, one of the most expensive in the town. It had been a charming little Andalusian inn with about thirty rooms that looked down on a series of patios decorated with bougain- villaea and potted palm trees, each room furnished in a different style. They had slept in an antique bed of iron bars with brass knobs; they had been happy there. Well, everything changes for the worse, he thought; the whole world is getting uglier day by day.

He heard a shout from behind him, and looking over his shoul- der he saw Guy waving to him from in front of a reddish-brown building that Brandi hadn't even bothered to look at. In his mind's eye the wall above the plate-glass windows of El Faro had been white. That was how be remembered it: the white town, the blue sea.

"Where the hell were you going?" Guy asked once they had greeted each other. "You walked right past here. I was sitting in- side watching you."

"I was busy reading the slogans on the wall, and looking for the old lighthouse. I suppose they've knocked that down."

"No. It's over there, where it's always been," Guy Manning said, and pointed a nicotine-stained finger down the street.

"Somebody must have moved it," Brandt said. "I could have sworn it was only half a block away."

"Memory is a tricky thing, old boy," Manning said, and Brandt thought, rather uncharitably, that despite his friend's slightly seedy looks, he had managed to retain his upper-class accent. "How've you been? I was surprised when you called. I didn't think you were ever coming back."

"It was probably a mistake," Brandt said, grinning.

"Well, yes. It's changed an awful lot in the last few years. And now the Arabs have arrived. That certainty hasn't done the town any good. And the hordes of tourists in the summer! It's like Miami Beach, isn't it? Are you and Pamela still together?"

Brandt noticed that the important question had been saved for the end of Manning's little speech. Pamela had been Guy's favor- ite; be had always preferred her company, had made no secret of it. But then that was to be expected, as they were both Brits, and Pa- mela was beautiful in that special English way, clear skin, blond hair, and a strong, erect figure that, even if it was not perfect in every detail, was nothing you could "crab her for," as her friends said.

Brandt said: "No. Pam has joined another regiment. She has a new commanding officer now."

"I am sorry," Manning said. "It must have been quite a blow for you, David."

"I could see it coming, and that helped a little," Brandt replied. "Shall we go inside and have a little breakfast? I don't like to talk about my personal disasters on an empty stomach."