1 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BESTSELLER * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

A picaresque, swashbuckling adventure. -The Washington Post Book World

They’re an odd pair, to be sure: pale, rail-thin, black-clad Zelikman, a moody, itinerant physician fond of jaunty headgear, and ex-soldier Amram, a gray-haired giant of a man as quick with a razor-tongued witticism as with a sharpened battle-ax. Brothers under the skin, comrades in arms, they make their rootless way through the Caucasus Mountains, circa a.d. 950, living as they please and surviving however they can-as blades and thieves for hire and as practiced bamboozlers, cheerfully separating the gullible from their money. But when they are dragooned into service as escorts and defenders to a prince of the Khazar Empire, they soon find themselves the half-willing generals in a full-scale revolution-on a road paved with warriors and whores, evil emperors and extraordinary elephants, secrets, swordplay, and such stuff as the grandest adventures are made of.

Praise for Gentlemen of the Road

Within a few pages I was happily tangled in [Chabon’s] net of finely filigreed language, seduced by an old-school-style swashbuckling quest … laced with surprises and humor. -San Francisco Chronicle

[Chabon] is probably the premiere prose stylist-the Updike-of his generation. -Time

The action is intricate and exuberant… . It’s hard to resist its gathering momentum, not to mention the sheer headlong pleasure of Chabon’s language. -The New York Times Book Review

[A] wild, wild adventure … abounds with lush language … This book roars to be read aloud. -Chicago Sun-Times