This book is about three men in the French Foreign Legion. It details the brutality of the Legion and its hold on its men. One of the main characters is an officer born into a noble family. Another is a young American who joins while in the grip of depression over his lost love and his pitiful life. The third is a sergeant from Canadian. The three, at various times in the book, engage in fighting against a new African threat in the form of a new group of fanatical killers. The three also fall in love with the same woman.
Girardi's characterization is excellent; the main characters are all quite different and interesting. The plot takes some unusual turns along the way and serves to keep the reader engaged throughout the book.
Three out of five stars ( )

Gorgeous East is a wide ranging adventure story filled with characters that should be despised by readers, but are likeable instead. The redeeming factor for these rogues is the company they keep, the French Foreign Legion. They come from all over the world, except France, with histories of criminal activity, drug and alcohol addiction, and general moral turpitude. But Robert Girardi describes their lives beautifully in sympathetic detail. The depraved backgrounds of the legionnaires have a common denominator, the conscious and unconscious desire for punishment and redemption. The very harsh training and discipline of the Legion allows the members to earn something they have never had, honor.

Called upon by the French government and the United Nations to take up hopeless military causes, Legionnaires risk their lives only for their unit. The mercenaries identify the Legion as their country not the state ordering them to combat. The potentially grim story is filled with humor and references to art and music even when the characters are on the edge of death. This makes the novel entertaining and interesting for its three hundred plus pages. It is a wonderful work by Girardi.

The violence in the book is outrageous and gratuitous putting the characters in an introspective dilemma. Are they degenerate absurd nihilists like the enemies they fight in the miserable Sahara, or is there some part of their antisocial lives that they can hold as worthwhile? The French Foreign Legion offers them a rugged sanctuary, but does it give them something to believe in? Ostensibly, there are no simple existential answers so many just drink and don't think. However, they do not turn into nihilists but rather embrace the illusion of the Legion, the shade of what they believe was once great. The Gorgeous East with its temptations, allures, gargoyles, and wild freedom is held in fee by their call in times of hopeless danger "a moi la Legion." ( )