Stars and Bars

by William Boyd

First published 1984

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3.6(4,603)

Henderson Dores, an English art expert living in New York, is sent south to value a collection owned by an eccentric wealthy family. He approaches the assignment with the habits of a cautious Englishman but finds himself in a world of outsized personalities, religious enthusiasm, money, violence and social confidence that repeatedly defeats his expectations.

The journey becomes less about the paintings than Henderson’s uncertain attempt to remake himself in America. His romantic complications and professional anxieties follow him from Manhattan into the Deep South, where cultural misunderstandings accumulate into farce and danger. The novel uses the art trade and the contrasts of 1980s America to examine national stereotypes and the instability of personal reinvention.