America looms large in the new novels by Jonathan Lethem and Peter Carey, the interviewees in February 2010's Faber Podcast. George Miller discusses modern-day Manhattan - both real and unreal - as portrayed by Lethem in Chronic City, a book rich in metaphors. Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America goes back a couple of centuries, but as Carey makes clear, there are clear parallels between an America in its infancy and today's state of affairs.
