The back cover of "Prague" informs us that this book is: bold, ambitious, dazzling, brilliant, intricate, worldly-wise, exhilarating, the most memorable fiction debut of the year, and is also comparable to Joyce, Proust, Fitzgerald, and doubly so, to Hemingway. I thought it was a mediocre read, a good attempt at a first novel, a decent story reasonably well told.

Like many first novels, the contents of this book are probably thinly-veiled actual people and events scantily clad in a fiction bikini, however, the cover of "Prague" is full-blown fiction. Besides the accolades piled high and deep, "Prague" is set in Budapest. I suppose that on some deeper level this point is telling of the character’s lives, but I also suppose that Random House figured that a book titled "Prague" with a picture of the hauntingly beautiful Charles Bridge on the cover would sell more copies than Budapest and its somewhat shabbier, less grandiose bridge. Prague was the media darling that Budapest never was -- the louder, bolder, larger, hipper, older, communism to capitalism sister of the two -- which, is the point. The characters in "Prague" wish they were in Prague instead of Budapest; where it’s happening instead of where it’s almost happening, but that doesn’t seem to factor into the story as much as it does the marketing campaign.

"Prague" is set a few years after the fall of communism. The book begins by introducing the cast of expat characters- a venture capitalist, artist, journalist, scholar, entry-level foreign officer, and the obligatory English teacher- as they enjoy cheap drinks, admire beautiful architecture, and play a game, Sincerity, invented by one of the characters in which scores are tallied by one’s ability to tell convincing lies and detect the lies of others. This introductory technique has been called “devilishly clever,” but I found it a bit gimmicky.

What Phillips does well is to capture the expat mentality and lifestyle. The way in which all young expats felt in those post communist, fortress-like, fairytale cities, as they watched a nation fumble and bumble along trying to figure out capitalism and mostly getting it wrong. The self importance of being a part of something significant in history, of being in the 90’s version of Hemingway’s Paris of the 20’s, of being the star of your own cobble-stoned movie. There is also plenty of clever and witty similes and metaphors, but they tend to out-shine all the text for pages around them and therefore seem a bit out of place as if Phillips had compiled a list of great lines and tried to find places in the text into which they might fit.

A few other nice touches are the history lessons we learn along the way, as well as a look at the types of relationships that evolve in an expat community where everything is temporary. Some leave, some stay-- the band plays on. Some are there to do good, others to do well. Most are chasing a dream of sorts, whether financial or artistic, and some are just looking for a place to hide, party, and live cheaply. We see both the positive influences, and the destructive powers of Western greed.

Of a time and a place where one couldn’t walk across a barroom without spilling his or her drink on ten expats who were there to write their "Prague novel," Phillips has at least produced one of these much heard about but rarely seen manuscripts, and that in itself is an accomplishment. In many ways, the hype of the book is as false and hollow as the times in which it depicts, and maybe that is an appropriate use of a marketing campaign, but I would have liked it better if I had not been told how great it was--had not been caught up in Random House’s and many of the reviewers’ own game of Sincerity.