Back Channel [Paperback]

October 1962. The Soviet Union has smuggled missiles into Cuba. Kennedy and Khrushchev are in the midst of a military face-off that could lead to nuclear conflagration. The only way for the two leaders to negotiate safely is to open a “back channel” by way of a clandestine emissary.

The fate of the world rests unexpectedly on the shoulders of that emissary, nineteen-year-old Cornell sophomore Margo Jensen. Pursued by the hawks on both sides, and protected by nothing but her own ingenuity and courage, Margo is drawn ever more deeply into the crossfire as the clock ticks toward World War III.

Stephen L. Carter’s gripping novel Back Channel is a brilliant amalgam of fact and fiction—a suspenseful reimagining of the events that became the Cuban Missile Crisis.“[His] best work of fiction yet. . . . Enough intrigue . . . to keep . . . the eyes of a well-informed reader glued to the page.” —The Boston Globe

“Smart, well written and well informed. . . . Pure, mile-a-minute entertainment.” —The Washington Post

 “Stephen L. Carter’s suspenseful novel will have readers burning the midnight oil. . . . Because the novel is based on an historical event, the real question is not will nuclear war be avoided but how.” —New York Journal of BooksStephen L. Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale University, where he has taught since 1982. He is also the author of seven books of nonfiction.The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading group’s discussion of Back Channel, Stephen L. Carter’s ambitious and brilliantly rendered retelling of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the personalities who shaped its outcome.

1. Over the course of the novel, Margo’s understanding of her father and his wartime role becomes more vivid. How does herl“M