Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals

“Armstrong’s novel is an admirable contribution to the literature of that conflict, its mordant humor effectively balanced by a keen appreciation of the futility and irrationality of war.”—BookPage

Jesse Armstrong has dared a lot: written a funny novel—a road novel!—much of it set in the former Yugoslavia in the Age of Milsoevic. Armstrong’s hero, and his not-very-Magnificent Eight (or seven), set off on a dubious peace excursion that takes them from London to the Balkans, with even an attempt at sightseeing at Hitler’s Austrian birthplace. Along the way, Armstrong’s ear for comedy remains keen; as he goes deeper into the killing fields of modern Europe, the laughs are real but never cheap.”—Jeffrey Frank, author of The Columnist, Bad Publicity and Trudy Hopedale
 
“It’s astonishing how many impossible feats Jesse Armstrong manages to pull off in his first novel. This is a comedy about war that succeeds in telling you in a funny way how not funny war is. It’s full of mixed-up idealists who you really care for, and whose youthful naivety is both laughable and laudable at the same time. It’s an honest and hilariously embarrassing love story whose comedy never diminishes the reality of the torrid international mess going on all around it. And it’s all done with a lightness of touch and readability that’ll be the envy of most writers. It’s a hilarious novel with serious things to say.”—Armando Iannuci, producer/creator of I’m Alan Partridge and Veep


“This is a novel that takes comedy out of its comfort zone, too. And the good news is that the more serious Armstrong gets, the funnier and filthier the jokes become.”—Sunday Express

“Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals combines the best of sitcom-style drama with just the right amount of gravity to make it a substantial read…Armstrong’s debut manages to be clever and fun while also retaining grittiness.”—The Independent 

 “One of our most accomplished TV writers has announced himself as a novelist to watch with the best Waugh-like war story debut novel since William Boyd’s A Good Man in Africa almost 35 years ago.”—New Statesman

 ”Very funny and dry.”—The Spectator

“You’ll also find anough find writing to make you realise that Armstrong is after much more than laughs.”—The Times (Saturday Review)

“Humanistic and generous in its humour.”—The Times Literary Supplement  

“A bravura comic debut…Armstrong’s comic voice is versatile, original, unabashed; deployed to reveal rather than obscure.”—The Guardian