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An eloquent story about the regenerative power of one man's confrontation with life and death.
First published January 1, 1982
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About the author
Irwin Shaw
263 books424 followersShaw was born Irwin Gilbert Shamforoff in the South Bronx, New York City, to Russian Jewish immigrants. Shaw was a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best known for his novels, The Young Lions (1948) and Rich Man Poor Man (1970).
His parents were Rose and Will. His younger brother, David Shaw (died 2007), became a noted Hollywood producer. Shortly after Irwin's birth, the Shamforoffs moved to Brooklyn. Irwin changed his surname upon entering college. He spent most of his youth in Brooklyn, where he graduated from Brooklyn College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1934.
Shaw began screenwriting in 1935 at the age of 21, and scripted for several radio shows, including Dick Tracy, The Gumps and Studio One.
Shaw's first play, Bury the Dead (1936) was an expressionist drama about a group of soldiers killed in a battle who refuse to be buried. During the 1940s, Shaw wrote for a number of films, including Talk of the Town (a comedy about civil liberties), The Commandos Strike at Dawn (based on a C.S. Forester story about commandos in occupied Norway) and Easy Living (about a football player unable to enter the game due to a medical condition). Shaw married Marian Edwards. They had one son, Adam Shaw, born in 1950, himself a writer of magazine articles and non-fiction.
Shaw enlisted in the U.S. Army and was a warrant officer during World War II.He served with an Army documentary film unit. The Young Lions, Shaw's first novel, was published in 1949. Based on his experiences in Europe during the war, the novel was very successful and was adapted into a 1958 film.
Shaw's second novel, The Troubled Air, chronicling the rise of McCarthyism, was published in 1951. He was among those who signed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the John Howard Lawson and Dalton Trumbo convictions for contempt of Congress, resulting from hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Falsely accused of being a communist by the Red Channels publication, Shaw was placed on the Hollywood blacklist by the movie studio bosses. In 1951 he left the United States and went to Europe, where he lived for 25 years, mostly in Paris and Switzerland. He later claimed that the blacklist "only glancingly bruised" his career. During the 1950s he wrote several more screenplays, including Desire Under the Elms (based on Eugene O'Neill's play) and Fire Down Below (about a tramp boat in the Caribbean).
While living in Europe, Shaw wrote more bestselling books, notably Lucy Crown (1956), Two Weeks in Another Town (1960), Rich Man, Poor Man (1970) (for which he would later write a less successful sequel entitled Beggarman, Thief) and Evening in Byzantium (made into a 1978 TV movie). Rich Man, Poor Man was adapted into a highly successful ABC television miniseries in 1976.
His novel Top of the Hill, about the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid in 1980, was made into a TV movie, starring Wayne Rogers, Adrienne Barbeau, and Sonny Bono.
His last two novels were Bread Upon the Waters (1981) and Acceptable Losses (1982).
Shaw died in Davos, Switzerland on May 16, 1984, aged 71, after undergoing treatment for prostate cancer.
His parents were Rose and Will. His younger brother, David Shaw (died 2007), became a noted Hollywood producer. Shortly after Irwin's birth, the Shamforoffs moved to Brooklyn. Irwin changed his surname upon entering college. He spent most of his youth in Brooklyn, where he graduated from Brooklyn College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1934.
Shaw began screenwriting in 1935 at the age of 21, and scripted for several radio shows, including Dick Tracy, The Gumps and Studio One.
Shaw's first play, Bury the Dead (1936) was an expressionist drama about a group of soldiers killed in a battle who refuse to be buried. During the 1940s, Shaw wrote for a number of films, including Talk of the Town (a comedy about civil liberties), The Commandos Strike at Dawn (based on a C.S. Forester story about commandos in occupied Norway) and Easy Living (about a football player unable to enter the game due to a medical condition). Shaw married Marian Edwards. They had one son, Adam Shaw, born in 1950, himself a writer of magazine articles and non-fiction.
Shaw enlisted in the U.S. Army and was a warrant officer during World War II.He served with an Army documentary film unit. The Young Lions, Shaw's first novel, was published in 1949. Based on his experiences in Europe during the war, the novel was very successful and was adapted into a 1958 film.
Shaw's second novel, The Troubled Air, chronicling the rise of McCarthyism, was published in 1951. He was among those who signed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the John Howard Lawson and Dalton Trumbo convictions for contempt of Congress, resulting from hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Falsely accused of being a communist by the Red Channels publication, Shaw was placed on the Hollywood blacklist by the movie studio bosses. In 1951 he left the United States and went to Europe, where he lived for 25 years, mostly in Paris and Switzerland. He later claimed that the blacklist "only glancingly bruised" his career. During the 1950s he wrote several more screenplays, including Desire Under the Elms (based on Eugene O'Neill's play) and Fire Down Below (about a tramp boat in the Caribbean).
While living in Europe, Shaw wrote more bestselling books, notably Lucy Crown (1956), Two Weeks in Another Town (1960), Rich Man, Poor Man (1970) (for which he would later write a less successful sequel entitled Beggarman, Thief) and Evening in Byzantium (made into a 1978 TV movie). Rich Man, Poor Man was adapted into a highly successful ABC television miniseries in 1976.
His novel Top of the Hill, about the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid in 1980, was made into a TV movie, starring Wayne Rogers, Adrienne Barbeau, and Sonny Bono.
His last two novels were Bread Upon the Waters (1981) and Acceptable Losses (1982).
Shaw died in Davos, Switzerland on May 16, 1984, aged 71, after undergoing treatment for prostate cancer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
March 31, 2019
This was Shaw’s last finished book and gets bagged a lot by critics who regret how different he is here from his early work. I want to be more generous than that. It’s intensely personal, derived from the author’s life. That’s how it feels and, subsequently reading a little about the end of his life, that’s how it was. Not being a fan of sitting through blow-by-blows of other people’s dreams, it was pleasing that the parts of the book where he is drifting in and out of life – an operation was botched and bitterly retold – are real. It reminded me of my father’s emergence with some brain damage from a coma. He talked of the most surreal things as if they could be touched. There was no difference in his brain between them and those around him. Shaw does a good job of conveying that close to death dream state.
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June 7, 2012
A 65-year Roger Damon receives an anonymous call at night. The unknown caller is threatening him insisting on a meeting. Roger ignores the meeting, though his life is changed forever: he gets back to his memories, recalls his losses and victories, friends he once had, women he once loved, stupid things he once did and what his whole life is worth now. Slowly he's going through these ghosts of the past realizing that the threatener, whoever he might be, can easily put an end to all this.
What I adore Irwin Shaw's books for is their simplicity at first sight but very deep meaning once you get into them; beautifully written characters and perfectly circumscribed personalities, most of all though for the unobtrusive push to think and compile your own view on the subjects, topics, events and particular heroes.
Hence in the book you won't even know who was the anonymous caller and that is Shaw, he'd never give you his interpretation :) You just have to decide for yourself who might've been the threatener (or perhaps Roger's dreamt of all that?) and live Roger's life with him, from the beginning to 'nowadays', taste his best most remarkable moments, weigh up his actions, share his dreams and at the same time try all that on your very own self.
The book was somehow similar to "Lucy Crown" with its subtle psychology, personal drama and the freaking feeling of reality.
What I adore Irwin Shaw's books for is their simplicity at first sight but very deep meaning once you get into them; beautifully written characters and perfectly circumscribed personalities, most of all though for the unobtrusive push to think and compile your own view on the subjects, topics, events and particular heroes.
Hence in the book you won't even know who was the anonymous caller and that is Shaw, he'd never give you his interpretation :) You just have to decide for yourself who might've been the threatener (or perhaps Roger's dreamt of all that?) and live Roger's life with him, from the beginning to 'nowadays', taste his best most remarkable moments, weigh up his actions, share his dreams and at the same time try all that on your very own self.
The book was somehow similar to "Lucy Crown" with its subtle psychology, personal drama and the freaking feeling of reality.
October 10, 2025
I liked it
February 24, 2017
Irwin Shaw was a talented American writer who went into self-imposed exile in Europe after being targeted in Senator Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunts of the 1950s. From Europe, Shaw continued to write critically acclaimed works until his death in 1984, works that are now being reissued in e-book format.
Acceptable Losses was Shaw’s final book. It is the story of Roger Damon, a literary agent, who gets a strange phone call. The caller demands that they meet or else sins of Damon’s past will be exposed. He doesn’t take it seriously at first, but as the caller persists, Damon begins to reflect upon his past in an effort to identify his telephonic extortionist.
This story, like most of Shaw’s work, defies characterization. Filled with social commentary and mental journeys, it is also a mystery, as Damon’s caller continues to stalk him, But, typical of Shaw, we never know who or why. The stalker serves merely as a backdrop to Shaw’s views on the culture and social mores of the time.
If you like your fiction formulaic, you might not warm to this book, but if you like a good story that will suck you in and hold your interest for several hundred pages, get this book.
Acceptable Losses was Shaw’s final book. It is the story of Roger Damon, a literary agent, who gets a strange phone call. The caller demands that they meet or else sins of Damon’s past will be exposed. He doesn’t take it seriously at first, but as the caller persists, Damon begins to reflect upon his past in an effort to identify his telephonic extortionist.
This story, like most of Shaw’s work, defies characterization. Filled with social commentary and mental journeys, it is also a mystery, as Damon’s caller continues to stalk him, But, typical of Shaw, we never know who or why. The stalker serves merely as a backdrop to Shaw’s views on the culture and social mores of the time.
If you like your fiction formulaic, you might not warm to this book, but if you like a good story that will suck you in and hold your interest for several hundred pages, get this book.
June 22, 2016
Əsər çox qəşəngdir, niyə 4 verdiyimi bilmirəm, ola bilsin müəllifin digər əsərləri daha çox xoşuma gəlmişdi :)
Bir qısa zənglə səni hədələyirlər, sonra əlaqə kəsilir, həftələrlə heç bir yeni zəng yox, amma bu keçən həftələrdə sırf o qısa zəngin(bəlkə səhv düşmüşdülər, bəlkə dəlinin biri idi, bəlkə zarafat edirdilər - önəmli deyilmiş) ucbatından sənin bütün həyatın dəyişir. Məni niyə hədələyirlər, görən bu kim idi düşünübən bütün keçmişdə pislik elədiklərini xatırlamağa çalışırsan, siyahı tutursan, 60 yaşından ta erkən gəncliyə qədər. Sonra həyatının əslində hər an bitirilə biləcəyini dərk edib ömrünün sonunda etmək istədiyin şeylər ağlına gəlir. Və bu araşdırma-xatırlamalar səni həyata yenidən baxmağa vadar edir, həyatı başqa cür görməyə.
Bir qısa zənglə səni hədələyirlər, sonra əlaqə kəsilir, həftələrlə heç bir yeni zəng yox, amma bu keçən həftələrdə sırf o qısa zəngin(bəlkə səhv düşmüşdülər, bəlkə dəlinin biri idi, bəlkə zarafat edirdilər - önəmli deyilmiş) ucbatından sənin bütün həyatın dəyişir. Məni niyə hədələyirlər, görən bu kim idi düşünübən bütün keçmişdə pislik elədiklərini xatırlamağa çalışırsan, siyahı tutursan, 60 yaşından ta erkən gəncliyə qədər. Sonra həyatının əslində hər an bitirilə biləcəyini dərk edib ömrünün sonunda etmək istədiyin şeylər ağlına gəlir. Və bu araşdırma-xatırlamalar səni həyata yenidən baxmağa vadar edir, həyatı başqa cür görməyə.
March 6, 2012
Not much plot, just a lot of meandering, much of it through pointless dreams. I suspect the last third was a rehash of some episode he had in the hospital. It went on forever. Very unsatisfying ending as well.
February 6, 2019
Overall this is an enjoyable read with very well carved out characters and plot twists. My only criticism however would be that some parts dragged on a bit too much for my liking with unnecessary details.
January 18, 2021
⠀
I love second-hand books. I don't know exactly when or how it all began. But I remember scouring these book stores with Amma, who made sure we had enough books to read, though she could hardly afford anything. Even as a kid I knew, books were a luxury constrained by social structure. ⠀⠀
⠀
But as I grew older, I had more reasons to go for used books. They have a journey, unlike the newly printed copies. They transcend borders. They have a life-- torn pages taped back in, side notes that tell a story, signatures and pages stuck together from sweaty hands. ⠀⠀
⠀
While one can always find books for reading anywhere, it is from the second-hand bookstores that you get 'books for collecting.' It was from one such store in Trivandrum, I picked up 'Acceptable losses' by Irwin Shaw. ⠀⠀
⠀
This 1983 first edition with a golden cover and bold red font was too bright to ignore. The book had travelled a long way before it found me. But I didn't touch it for another year. ⠀⠀
⠀
'Acceptable losses' is different from the typical 'Irwin Shaw' novels. Probably because he wrote it after an illness and a brief stint in the hospital. Shaw said NYT that he felt intimations of mortality, while at the hospital. ⠀⠀
⠀
Written in the backdrop of the publishing industry, the book speaks about a man's confrontation with life and death. It begins with the protagonist Roger Damon, a publisher receiving a threatening phone call. This forces him to look back upon incidents in his life pushing him to a pointless debate between right and wrong. ⠀⠀
⠀
Would death be easy if you are left alone, with our voice ringing desperately on our ears? The harrowing narrative at the hospital that attempts to explain death is perhaps the best part of this novel. The space between life and death according to Shaw is a temporary summer parting, an abyss, better left unspanned.⠀⠀
⠀
An average novel with a cliched end, Acceptable losses is a good one time read.
I love second-hand books. I don't know exactly when or how it all began. But I remember scouring these book stores with Amma, who made sure we had enough books to read, though she could hardly afford anything. Even as a kid I knew, books were a luxury constrained by social structure. ⠀⠀
⠀
But as I grew older, I had more reasons to go for used books. They have a journey, unlike the newly printed copies. They transcend borders. They have a life-- torn pages taped back in, side notes that tell a story, signatures and pages stuck together from sweaty hands. ⠀⠀
⠀
While one can always find books for reading anywhere, it is from the second-hand bookstores that you get 'books for collecting.' It was from one such store in Trivandrum, I picked up 'Acceptable losses' by Irwin Shaw. ⠀⠀
⠀
This 1983 first edition with a golden cover and bold red font was too bright to ignore. The book had travelled a long way before it found me. But I didn't touch it for another year. ⠀⠀
⠀
'Acceptable losses' is different from the typical 'Irwin Shaw' novels. Probably because he wrote it after an illness and a brief stint in the hospital. Shaw said NYT that he felt intimations of mortality, while at the hospital. ⠀⠀
⠀
Written in the backdrop of the publishing industry, the book speaks about a man's confrontation with life and death. It begins with the protagonist Roger Damon, a publisher receiving a threatening phone call. This forces him to look back upon incidents in his life pushing him to a pointless debate between right and wrong. ⠀⠀
⠀
Would death be easy if you are left alone, with our voice ringing desperately on our ears? The harrowing narrative at the hospital that attempts to explain death is perhaps the best part of this novel. The space between life and death according to Shaw is a temporary summer parting, an abyss, better left unspanned.⠀⠀
⠀
An average novel with a cliched end, Acceptable losses is a good one time read.
April 10, 2025
Può una telefonata sconvolgerci la vita? Sì, quando nel cuore della notte una voce sconosciuta ci minaccia dicendo “Lei ha fatto il cattivo bambino e adesso deve pagare in qualche modo”. E' quello che capita a Roger, una persona normalissima, un agente letterario, che ha preferito seguire i giovani talenti piuttosto che gli scrittori commerciali, tanto che solo di recente ha piazzato, convinto dal suo socio, il primo vero best seller; felicemente coniugato da vent'anni con la seconda moglie e ha ancora buoni rapporti con la prima, non ha mai fatto grossi torti a nessuno, così quelle minacce lo sconvolgono. Un detective gli suggerisce di stilare la lista dei possibili nemici personali e professionali e allora fruga nella memoria ripercorrendo il passato. Una controversia con uno scrittore di troppe pretese, un'amante che lo aveva usato per avere un figlio, una segretaria che lo aveva circuito per una raccomandazione... solo qualche pecca e nulla più in quarant'anni. La moglie e il socio cercano di proteggerlo in tutti i modi, un vecchio compagno di college si offre per alcuni giorni di fargli da guardia del corpo, ma Roger non è più lo stesso a casa e sul lavoro: irritabile, la mente svagata, comportamenti anomali che culminano in una giornata di acquisti compulsivi. C'è da farsi venire una bella ulcera così finisce in ospedale e la brutta esperienza lo riporta con i piedi per terra. Irvin Shaw intorno a un canovaccio da romanzo giallo, mette in scena l'ennesimo bilancio della vita di una persona di mezza età tra passato e presente. Nonostante la narrazione sia in punta di ironia, il sottofondo è spesso triste e malinconico: tanti sono gli amici e i conoscenti che Roger scopre non esserci più per un destino sovente crudele ed improvviso. Piacevole in alcuni episodi della vita del protagonista anche se a volte la storia gira un po' a vuoto con un finale che non mi ha convinto più di tanto.
December 15, 2025
I picked this up at a free bookshop in a local cafe, the plot sounded intriguing.
To begin with I was locked in. We start with a man, Damon, getting a call in the night threatening his life if he doesn't meet a man on the corner in ten mins. Damon doesn't recognise him and goes back to sleep. But the man is rattled and the rest of the book is him slowly spiralling into paranoia and reflecting on the people in his life.
I love the characterisation Irwin creates in his book. Here is an excerpt I enjoyed reading:
"She died, I think, of embarrassment, embarrassment at being alive and taking up space on the planet." I love it ❤️
The problem with this book for me is that I was reading waiting for the plot to happen during this mans rumination of his life but it just doesn't. The mystery man, aside from leaving another threatening voice mail, doesn't actively appear again from page 1 to page 206! It was losing me. I skim read the last third of the book hoping there would be something redeeming in the end but the end was a let down. I wouldn't pick this up again.
To begin with I was locked in. We start with a man, Damon, getting a call in the night threatening his life if he doesn't meet a man on the corner in ten mins. Damon doesn't recognise him and goes back to sleep. But the man is rattled and the rest of the book is him slowly spiralling into paranoia and reflecting on the people in his life.
I love the characterisation Irwin creates in his book. Here is an excerpt I enjoyed reading:
"She died, I think, of embarrassment, embarrassment at being alive and taking up space on the planet." I love it ❤️
The problem with this book for me is that I was reading waiting for the plot to happen during this mans rumination of his life but it just doesn't. The mystery man, aside from leaving another threatening voice mail, doesn't actively appear again from page 1 to page 206! It was losing me. I skim read the last third of the book hoping there would be something redeeming in the end but the end was a let down. I wouldn't pick this up again.
September 23, 2024
Out of all the books Irwin Shaw has written, this one is by far the wildest one I've read. Quite a few times while reading I wondered what demons must have been haunting mr. Shaw for him to write a disturbing book such as this one. The hospital scenes were especially terrifying and it came as no surprise that this was his last finished novel.
Damon was the typical Irwin Shaw male protagonist with a weird addition of having an exaggerated notice of race. Why it was so important to know whether a person was black or not, I cannot tell but it was not in his style and it felt weird, to say the least.
Nevertheless, it was an interesting read into a man who was perhaps struggling with his mortality and trying to make sense of life and death the best way he knew how - he was a brilliant writer, after all. I'm glad I read his last book, but it is far from my favorite of his works, which I typically love.
Damon was the typical Irwin Shaw male protagonist with a weird addition of having an exaggerated notice of race. Why it was so important to know whether a person was black or not, I cannot tell but it was not in his style and it felt weird, to say the least.
Nevertheless, it was an interesting read into a man who was perhaps struggling with his mortality and trying to make sense of life and death the best way he knew how - he was a brilliant writer, after all. I'm glad I read his last book, but it is far from my favorite of his works, which I typically love.
October 11, 2024
This is another great book by Irwin Shaw. The story follows Roger Damon, a literary agent, who receives a threatening phone call in the middle of the night. The phone call turns not only his life upside down, but the lives of all those around him.
The prose is well written, the characters believable and well developed, and the story engaging. My only complaint about the book is that the identity of the man making the threatening phone call was never known. Both Roger and his friends spent a lot of time making lists trying to learn who the man was, and in the end, it would have been nice to know who the man was and what his motive was as well.
This is a great book I highly recommend.
The prose is well written, the characters believable and well developed, and the story engaging. My only complaint about the book is that the identity of the man making the threatening phone call was never known. Both Roger and his friends spent a lot of time making lists trying to learn who the man was, and in the end, it would have been nice to know who the man was and what his motive was as well.
This is a great book I highly recommend.
May 31, 2023
The last 60 pages completely let the whole book down. I enjoyed the writing style and the characters were likeable, logical and stable which made the book pleasant to read.
I enjoy reading about older people with a “past” : an ex-wife, enemies, affairs, regrets and some troubles to drink away. It’s quite romantic if you ask me.
All in all this book left very little impact on me in the end though.
Side note- there seemed to be a lot more crazy people back then?
I enjoy reading about older people with a “past” : an ex-wife, enemies, affairs, regrets and some troubles to drink away. It’s quite romantic if you ask me.
All in all this book left very little impact on me in the end though.
Side note- there seemed to be a lot more crazy people back then?
September 1, 2024
Not a dud in his bibliography
Shaw is such a great storyteller, beginning his career, just out of his teens, for the 1930s radio serial for comic strip cop, Dick Tracy. But his novels are always serious business, filled with three dimensional characters faced with real life challenges. Here, a NY book publisher on the cusp of retirement is threatened by an unknown stranger which spirals into physical pain. It makes him take stock of his life.
Shaw is such a great storyteller, beginning his career, just out of his teens, for the 1930s radio serial for comic strip cop, Dick Tracy. But his novels are always serious business, filled with three dimensional characters faced with real life challenges. Here, a NY book publisher on the cusp of retirement is threatened by an unknown stranger which spirals into physical pain. It makes him take stock of his life.
August 6, 2019
A thoroughly entertaining tale set in New York which has a literary agent, Roger Damon as its protagonist. Damon receives a threatening telephone call at 4 am one morning which turns his whole world upside down. How he deals with the threat is what the rest of the novel is about.
April 24, 2020
Terrific start about a literary agent and you get drawn into story. Then the phone call that threatens his life. Should now really become interesting but unfortunately does opposite. Becomes more and more boring until it finishes with no conclusion.
August 9, 2024
How does one do this? Irwin Shaw, marvelous writer, presents a scenario where his main character can re-examine his life and evaluate possible missteps. If you had the possibility of redoing actions which were not optimal, how would you respond?
February 28, 2018
Partially read.
July 28, 2020
Добротная, но не затягивает. Про обычных людей с их поступками.
August 26, 2020
Den fangede bare ikke.. Hørte den ikke til ende
August 22, 2024
Nice plot, nice writing, maybe too many characters that in the end don’t have such a big impact on the story. Ending maybe too ‘hasty’.
September 14, 2025
Shaw's final novel. Not one of his best, but there is no such thing as a bad Irwin Shaw novel.
November 15, 2025
15 yrs old me thought this was very good, very strange, very different to his other work. A lot of ramblings about memories and dreams and confusion. It actually was Shaw's last completed work and may be a bit autobiographical
May 8, 2016
Irwin Shaw had a great gift for stories about family men on their own. The protagonist of "Acceptable Losses" is a literary agent named Roger Damon, just past his sixty-fifth birthday, who one day receives an anonymous phone call from a man with a name he does not recognize. The message is simple: pretty soon, this anonymous person is going to kill Damon.
The point of the book is not to figure out who the mystery man is, but to take a look back with Damon as he reflects on more than six decades of life, attempting to ascertain who might want him dead.
The list is, unfortunately for Damon, rather long, and includes an author whose libelous book Damon's agency turned down, as well as a producer whose play Damon walked out of, and a prowler at his wife's school. And then there's his wife's heroin-addicted nephew whom Damon had to kick out of his home a while back. And the jealous lover of a woman the philandering Damon may or may not have made pregnant.
He reminisces on the death, years ago, of a mentor who died after giving him his only copy of his only novel. And then rediscovers, somewhat randomly, another old friendship; he and the man make plans for the next day, and then his old acquaintance dies almost immediately after.
Damon begins to wonder if death is not following him around, if he's cursed, and this causes him to withdraw into himself.
The final chapters are a bit wild, and somewhat of a departure for Shaw, as Damon lapses in an out of dream states, confusing past with present, dead with living.
The point of the book is not to figure out who the mystery man is, but to take a look back with Damon as he reflects on more than six decades of life, attempting to ascertain who might want him dead.
The list is, unfortunately for Damon, rather long, and includes an author whose libelous book Damon's agency turned down, as well as a producer whose play Damon walked out of, and a prowler at his wife's school. And then there's his wife's heroin-addicted nephew whom Damon had to kick out of his home a while back. And the jealous lover of a woman the philandering Damon may or may not have made pregnant.
He reminisces on the death, years ago, of a mentor who died after giving him his only copy of his only novel. And then rediscovers, somewhat randomly, another old friendship; he and the man make plans for the next day, and then his old acquaintance dies almost immediately after.
Damon begins to wonder if death is not following him around, if he's cursed, and this causes him to withdraw into himself.
The final chapters are a bit wild, and somewhat of a departure for Shaw, as Damon lapses in an out of dream states, confusing past with present, dead with living.
March 17, 2010
This was Shaw' last novel and his prose is educated and beautiful. The plot moves along after a prominent, well-respected literary agent in New York receives a threatening early morning call from a stranger. The stranger requests an immediate meeting saying that he has been a bad boy and will pay. The protagonist does not respond. The supporting characters are filled out nicely.
I was disappointed in the ending but the overall book was very good.
Look at the review in the Free Lance Star. Right on track.
I was disappointed in the ending but the overall book was very good.
Look at the review in the Free Lance Star. Right on track.
December 20, 2013
By getting threatening telephone calls, an old man began to recall his past. He didn't know who the caller was. The beginning of the story is mysterious, which makes the book much more interesting. This is Irwin Shaw's story, so the protagonist is very handsome and popular with women as usual, and I don't like this part (I think this makes the story look shallow). But other than that, I like this book.
If you like Shaw's tour de force "Rich Man, Poor Man", you may like this book.
If you like Shaw's tour de force "Rich Man, Poor Man", you may like this book.
April 2, 2015
Ещё одна неровная книга Шоу. Три с половиной звезды. Пожилой интеллигент из-за небольшого толчка начинает бояться и переосмысливать свою жизнь. Отличная завязка. К сожалению, последняя треть очень скучная - герой заболел и забыл об остальных проблемах. И вдобавок сны. Писателей, которые пишут про сны, нужно пороть.
April 17, 2012
After promising 150 Pages the story crumbles, get garrolous and pointless, his weakest novell and I read all ten.
Two weeks is the best, Evening in Byzantium was the last of his good novels, but acceptable losses is a complete mess.
Two weeks is the best, Evening in Byzantium was the last of his good novels, but acceptable losses is a complete mess.
November 23, 2013
I'm not quite sure how I ended up reading this one. I was put off by the 1970s culture and sex roles early on in the book, but the story was interesting and I got caught up in it. Irwin Shaw is, of course, a famous American writer, but this was the first book I'd read by him.
January 4, 2011
Do início ao fim era puro êxtase, mas não consigo entender as duas últimas páginas. Um pouco de decepção!
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