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A Thousand Pardons
Once a privileged and loving couple, the Armsteads have now reached a breaking point. Ben, a partner in a prestigious law firm, has become unpredictable at work and withdrawn at home—a change that weighs heavily on his wife, Helen, and their preteen daughter, Sara. Then, in one afternoon, Ben’s recklessness takes an alarming turn, and everything the Armsteads have built together unravels, swiftly and spectacularly.
Thrust back into the working world, Helen finds a job in public relations and relocates with Sara from their home in upstate New York to an apartment in Manhattan. There, Helen discovers she has a rare gift, indispensable in the world of image control: She can convince arrogant men to admit their mistakes, spinning crises into second chances. Yet redemption is more easily granted in her professional life than in her personal one.
As she is confronted with the biggest case of her career, the fallout from her marriage, and Sara’s increasingly distant behavior, Helen must face the limits of accountability and her own capacity for forgiveness.
Thrust back into the working world, Helen finds a job in public relations and relocates with Sara from their home in upstate New York to an apartment in Manhattan. There, Helen discovers she has a rare gift, indispensable in the world of image control: She can convince arrogant men to admit their mistakes, spinning crises into second chances. Yet redemption is more easily granted in her professional life than in her personal one.
As she is confronted with the biggest case of her career, the fallout from her marriage, and Sara’s increasingly distant behavior, Helen must face the limits of accountability and her own capacity for forgiveness.
225 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2013
202 people are currently reading
3631 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Dee
11 books204 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Jonathan Dee is the author of six novels. He is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, a frequent contributor to Harper's, and a former senior editor of The Paris Review. He teaches in the graduate writing programs at Columbia University and the New School.
Jonathan Dee is the author of six novels. He is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, a frequent contributor to Harper's, and a former senior editor of The Paris Review. He teaches in the graduate writing programs at Columbia University and the New School.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 663 reviews
July 7, 2018
where is jonathan dee when they hand out all the literary awards??
because, jesus christ, being a finalist for the pulitzer, while nice, is much less than this man deserves.
and, yes, he has given us another novel about the problems of wealthy white americans. so all of you people who are bored with the affluenza and can't get into a story unless it is about the struggles of the underclass, take a hike. but you're missing out.
because jonathan dee is the real deal. his prose is so natural, so clean, so incisive, that even though i was not in love with any of these characters, nor with the ending, i still count this as a complete triumph of a novel.
because it is.
it is about the breakdown of a marriage somewhere in-between the mopey melodrama of revolutionary road and the flat-out brutality of gone girl. which is to say, it feels real. the griping and snapping and pent-up frustration and the long days of not-seeing each other, and the not-vocalizing discontent until something happens, and the cracks can no longer be ignored.
Every day is a day wasted, and you know you only get so many of them and no more, and if anybody uses the phrase 'midlife crisis' right now I swear to God I am coming back here with a gun and shooting this place up like Columbine. It is an existential crisis. Every day is unique and zero-sum and when it is over you will never get it back, and in spite of that, in spite of that, when every day begins I know for a fact that I have lived it before. I have lived the day to come already. And yet I'm scared of dying. What kind of fucking sense does that make? I don't think I am too good for it all, by the way. In fact, I am probably not good enough for it, if you want to think of it like that. I am bored to near panic by my home and my work and my wife and my daughter. Think that makes me feel superior? But once you see how rote and lifeless it all is, you can't just unsee it, that's the thing.
that speech, delivered in a marriage counselor's office, is the beginning of the catastrophic slide into dissolution, right before The Thing That Happens, happens.
and our characters go their separate ways, one to suffer the toxicity of pity of her peers and go on to discover her hidden talents in a new career, and one to be punished for his transgression again and again until all that is left is his ownself.(which i know sounds trite, but considering he has already announced his existential crisis,the stripping away of everything until only the self remains is kind of a given)
there is a supporting cast of characters, most importantly ben and helen's adopted twelve-year-old daughter sara, who gets some really great scenes that made me squirm with remembered mother-daughter tension and aggravation (although not at twelve - i was still sweet and docile at twelve):
Sara had always hated eating dinner with her parents, and took no pains to disguise it. Like all of her contemporaries, she was restless when not doing at least two things at once, and the thought of eating - just eating, without the TV or her iPod on, without a phone in hand, without a book to read - struck her as not just wasteful but sentimental.
and a celebrity-actor, with a connection to helen:
He did not have a drinking problem per se, he felt; he just had so many other problems, so many other sensitivities, and they all eventually funneled toward alcohol as the only way, however temporary, of clearing the cache, of resetting himself.
and i had to quote those passages because they are perfect, even though i think i have myself transgressed, by quoting from an ARC, but i got the go-ahead to write the review, and i am hoping that the same brutes who enforce matress-tag removal do not come knocking down my door for my insouciance.
i am hoping that my glowing praise of jonathan dee will be enough to shield me.
because i have a great feeling about this book. its dissection of marriage is perfectly handled, and its exploration of private lives/public scandals is just as well-done. i have great enthusiasm for this book, despite my growly feelings towards the ending.
jonathan dee deserves to be read. you gotta wait until february for this one, but feel free to check out another of his books in the meantime, because he is under-read, and it's time that this situation ends.
come to my blog!
because, jesus christ, being a finalist for the pulitzer, while nice, is much less than this man deserves.
and, yes, he has given us another novel about the problems of wealthy white americans. so all of you people who are bored with the affluenza and can't get into a story unless it is about the struggles of the underclass, take a hike. but you're missing out.
because jonathan dee is the real deal. his prose is so natural, so clean, so incisive, that even though i was not in love with any of these characters, nor with the ending, i still count this as a complete triumph of a novel.
because it is.
it is about the breakdown of a marriage somewhere in-between the mopey melodrama of revolutionary road and the flat-out brutality of gone girl. which is to say, it feels real. the griping and snapping and pent-up frustration and the long days of not-seeing each other, and the not-vocalizing discontent until something happens, and the cracks can no longer be ignored.
Every day is a day wasted, and you know you only get so many of them and no more, and if anybody uses the phrase 'midlife crisis' right now I swear to God I am coming back here with a gun and shooting this place up like Columbine. It is an existential crisis. Every day is unique and zero-sum and when it is over you will never get it back, and in spite of that, in spite of that, when every day begins I know for a fact that I have lived it before. I have lived the day to come already. And yet I'm scared of dying. What kind of fucking sense does that make? I don't think I am too good for it all, by the way. In fact, I am probably not good enough for it, if you want to think of it like that. I am bored to near panic by my home and my work and my wife and my daughter. Think that makes me feel superior? But once you see how rote and lifeless it all is, you can't just unsee it, that's the thing.
that speech, delivered in a marriage counselor's office, is the beginning of the catastrophic slide into dissolution, right before The Thing That Happens, happens.
and our characters go their separate ways, one to suffer the toxicity of pity of her peers and go on to discover her hidden talents in a new career, and one to be punished for his transgression again and again until all that is left is his ownself.(which i know sounds trite, but considering he has already announced his existential crisis,the stripping away of everything until only the self remains is kind of a given)
there is a supporting cast of characters, most importantly ben and helen's adopted twelve-year-old daughter sara, who gets some really great scenes that made me squirm with remembered mother-daughter tension and aggravation (although not at twelve - i was still sweet and docile at twelve):
Sara had always hated eating dinner with her parents, and took no pains to disguise it. Like all of her contemporaries, she was restless when not doing at least two things at once, and the thought of eating - just eating, without the TV or her iPod on, without a phone in hand, without a book to read - struck her as not just wasteful but sentimental.
and a celebrity-actor, with a connection to helen:
He did not have a drinking problem per se, he felt; he just had so many other problems, so many other sensitivities, and they all eventually funneled toward alcohol as the only way, however temporary, of clearing the cache, of resetting himself.
and i had to quote those passages because they are perfect, even though i think i have myself transgressed, by quoting from an ARC, but i got the go-ahead to write the review, and i am hoping that the same brutes who enforce matress-tag removal do not come knocking down my door for my insouciance.
i am hoping that my glowing praise of jonathan dee will be enough to shield me.
because i have a great feeling about this book. its dissection of marriage is perfectly handled, and its exploration of private lives/public scandals is just as well-done. i have great enthusiasm for this book, despite my growly feelings towards the ending.
jonathan dee deserves to be read. you gotta wait until february for this one, but feel free to check out another of his books in the meantime, because he is under-read, and it's time that this situation ends.
come to my blog!
February 4, 2017
Jonathan Dee is a master of literary fiction. His language is purposeful, mature and his sentences are a beautiful construct. He expects a grown-up reader. He does not lead you by the hand; he expects you to make certain leaps yourself. I don't think he is an easy read: that is to say, he keeps you on your toes. You simply cannot skim in his novels. You may well miss an integral nugget of information, a gem of a sentence or a gorgeous turn of phrase.
It seems that Ben and Helen Armstead have it all. But their privileged life has started to crumble around them. Ben is a lawyer and he's starting to wonder what his life is all about. Uncommunicative with his wife, seemingly depressed, unhappy at work; it's fair to say he's having a mid-life crisis. Embarking on a trail of self-sabotage, his self-destructiveness cuts a swathe through his professional and his family life. He develops an apparent obsession with a young female colleague which leads him to a spectacular fall from grace, a lawsuit, loss of his job and signals the end of his marriage.
Helen suddenly, and very rudely, is thrust into the role of breadwinner for herself and Sara, the couple's adopted child. By pure chance or even fluke, she finds work in the PR industry and this heralds their move into Manhattan. And she's a natural with her own particular talent; she can turn a public relations nightmare into good fortune. Very soon, she finds herself the rising star of a large multinational PR company in their Crisis Management team. Through that work, Helen crosses paths with a famous actor; a man she went to grew up with and is suddenly in a tense and puzzling situation.
Children usually bear great strain when subject to divorce and Sara is no different. She begins to isolate herself from Helen and also her classmates at the Manhattan school she has begun to attend. Sara is now a latchkey kid; free to do what she wants for a few hours a day and she also starts skipping classes. Of course, she's headed trouble but you can't tell kids that, can you? They simply don't listen.
After reading The Privileges, I had high hopes for this novel and I was not disappointed. Dee is a keen interpreter of the human condition; he simply understands people, life and all it's incumbent issues. He writes about credible situations. I think A Thousand Pardons will resonate well with readers; who among us doesn't know someone who's been through a mid-life crisis and seen them beating a path to some ingenue's door or a woman forced to work to support herself and her children or a child who suffers through a divorce. And if you haven't, then this is what it's all about. I enjoyed this novel immensely and confidently recommend it to all readers.
April 6, 2013
It's a cliche story of redemption, but it's so well written that I was fully engaged. It's a story of a privileged family: the husband is a NYC high powered attorney, Mom stays at home, adopted Chinese daughter(going through puberty of course). Marriage gets stale, husband makes a pass at a law school summer associate (who then tries to sue for sexual harassment). Husband goes on a bender, takes the car and crashes and his career falls apart. Couple divorces, Mom tries to find a job after not working for 13 years. Husband goes to rehab. Daughter and Mom move to NYC, basically penniless . Totally cliche, yet so readable. His previous novel, The Privileges was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer. I'm going to read that. I like his style; yet the story was at time unreasonable, unbelievable, and predictable. The redemption part is the husband sees what he did and the long suffering wife (described as a nun by a couple of characters in the book) forgives him. Yet again, I read it like it was book candy.
March 19, 2013
Uhhhhh..This book, I think is asking to be pardoned. I don't know. I might have missed the point. It flowed well for the first quarter of it. I felt like I was taken for a ride on the unhappy-marriage-express but then I got tossed off and felt like I kept missing the bus.
The story is about the fall-out of a marriage; about their behavior afterwards and then how their adopted daughter, Sara thinks of life and her parents etc. but I didn't really get a sense of an actual story. We see what happens to the father. He kind of lost it and then tried to have sex with his assistant, got drunk and crashed and then was tossed in a rehab center and then a little jail time. Meanwhile, the devastated wife has to find the means to raise her daughter and live on her own after not working for several years. See, that sounds alright to me, providing the writing moves you. This kind of writing just seemed to list the day to day for each character and then a famous movie star is thrown in that's supposed to tie all three main characters together and it seems kinda forced like the author didn't know what to do 2/3 of the way through the book and thought questionable murder would be alright.
So it started off well enough. Reminded me of Franzen but no one does Franzen like...Franzen.
I was disappointed with the second half but thankfully it wasn't a long book. Thick pages, but not long. Not really recommended.
The story is about the fall-out of a marriage; about their behavior afterwards and then how their adopted daughter, Sara thinks of life and her parents etc. but I didn't really get a sense of an actual story. We see what happens to the father. He kind of lost it and then tried to have sex with his assistant, got drunk and crashed and then was tossed in a rehab center and then a little jail time. Meanwhile, the devastated wife has to find the means to raise her daughter and live on her own after not working for several years. See, that sounds alright to me, providing the writing moves you. This kind of writing just seemed to list the day to day for each character and then a famous movie star is thrown in that's supposed to tie all three main characters together and it seems kinda forced like the author didn't know what to do 2/3 of the way through the book and thought questionable murder would be alright.
So it started off well enough. Reminded me of Franzen but no one does Franzen like...Franzen.
I was disappointed with the second half but thankfully it wasn't a long book. Thick pages, but not long. Not really recommended.
April 16, 2013
I was anticipating reading this book but was disappointed. I so enjoyed The Privileges. But A Thousand Pardons barely eked out 2 stars, and only because I appreciated Jonathan Dee's last effort so much.
Like some other readers of this book, whose reviews I have looked over, I had a hard time believing that Helen, a divorced middle aged woman who hadn't held a job in many years, would suddenly soar to success in the Public Relations field in the manner Dee describes. And although the description of her husband Ben's fall from grace and ensuing scandal is told well at the beginning of the book, I found the motivation of his character rather inexplicable as the story continued. Ben and Helen's adopted daughter's character rings truer, as a sullen adolescent. There were many parts in this novel that I anticipated would happen, such as the heavily foreshadowed appearance of a famous movie star Helen went to high school with. I found the book, as a whole, rather unconvincing, plodding and cliched.
Like some other readers of this book, whose reviews I have looked over, I had a hard time believing that Helen, a divorced middle aged woman who hadn't held a job in many years, would suddenly soar to success in the Public Relations field in the manner Dee describes. And although the description of her husband Ben's fall from grace and ensuing scandal is told well at the beginning of the book, I found the motivation of his character rather inexplicable as the story continued. Ben and Helen's adopted daughter's character rings truer, as a sullen adolescent. There were many parts in this novel that I anticipated would happen, such as the heavily foreshadowed appearance of a famous movie star Helen went to high school with. I found the book, as a whole, rather unconvincing, plodding and cliched.
September 16, 2013
The life of the Armstead family is a mess. Ben’s partnership – in fact is freedom – is in question thanks to his reckless lifestyle. Suddenly forced to fend for herself and her daughter Sara, Helen finds work in a struggling public relations firm in Manhattan. Helen quickly discovers she has a gift for spinning crises into opportunities. But with the biggest client of her career looming over her, will the weight of the past and the distance of her daughter undercut Helen’s second life?
The premise of A Thousand Pardons had me interested in the beginning of the story. The writing of the first few paragraphs flowed well and had me wondering what would become of this nuclear family that had suddenly gone nuclear. Ben was out of control and about to pay for his transgressions. But I was more interested to see how Helen and Sara would deal with Ben’s fall. Unfortunately, that’s where the wheels fell off.
The primary character of Helen just didn’t really work. This housewife suddenly manages to not only find a job in an industry she has no experience in within the biggest city in America, but she basically takes over and is able to see the correct path when nobody else around her has a clue what to do. It is a nice concept – naive outsider comes to the big city and proves they have what it takes. The trouble is Helen simply doesn’t come off as convincing in being able to pull off that one-in-a-million transformation. From there the plot just becomes more contrived and clichéd.
The pacing of the writing was also painfully plodding. Dee really failed to gain my interest in this family and failed to convince me that any of it was at all plausible. The story turned into a series of daily diary entry by somebody who really wasn’t aware of their surroundings. It felt like Dee became bored with his own story. I think A Thousand Pardons held some promise, but in the end it really failed to deliver anything interesting or unique. I can’t really recommend this to anybody.
The premise of A Thousand Pardons had me interested in the beginning of the story. The writing of the first few paragraphs flowed well and had me wondering what would become of this nuclear family that had suddenly gone nuclear. Ben was out of control and about to pay for his transgressions. But I was more interested to see how Helen and Sara would deal with Ben’s fall. Unfortunately, that’s where the wheels fell off.
The primary character of Helen just didn’t really work. This housewife suddenly manages to not only find a job in an industry she has no experience in within the biggest city in America, but she basically takes over and is able to see the correct path when nobody else around her has a clue what to do. It is a nice concept – naive outsider comes to the big city and proves they have what it takes. The trouble is Helen simply doesn’t come off as convincing in being able to pull off that one-in-a-million transformation. From there the plot just becomes more contrived and clichéd.
The pacing of the writing was also painfully plodding. Dee really failed to gain my interest in this family and failed to convince me that any of it was at all plausible. The story turned into a series of daily diary entry by somebody who really wasn’t aware of their surroundings. It felt like Dee became bored with his own story. I think A Thousand Pardons held some promise, but in the end it really failed to deliver anything interesting or unique. I can’t really recommend this to anybody.
April 2, 2024
3.5 Stars
January 10, 2013
*Won through a Goodreads Giveaway*
FYI to who ever reads this review NEVER HAVE A MIDLIFE CRISIS! The story centers around a family who has been thrown into the most bizarre circumstances all because Ben Armstead had some sort of breakdown. The heroine turns out to be his wife Helen, who kind of has a coming of age at the ripe old age of 40-something. She is the caracter I most cared about yet loathed at the same time. I wanted her to grow a back-bone and take hold instead of being railroaded into the circumstances life throws at you. Although she handles every hardship brilliantly, I wanted her to get mad or hit something at times.
Ben reveals to Helen early in the book that he's come to a crossroad in his life and wants out. Once he gets his wish things go from bad to worse. I'm not sure if Jonathan Dee made him purposely comical but I felt that every part of the story he was mentioned in was hysterical or ludicrous. And their adopted daughter Sara, who's a brat, is also a major caracter in the book. My biggest thing that ruins books for me are teens who are spoiled, selfish, rude, or just idiots. I believe she holds the torch for many of those traits. I did not like her at all.
Enough of my ranting about the caracters, I actually found this book to be quite enjoyable. The blurbs on the cover compare this book to Jonathan Franzen and Richard Ford but the first and only book I read by Franzen was not to my liking. Luckily, I really liked this book. It's a well-written novel about how one's self-destruction can be the perfect recipe for another's triumph. And the recurring theme of honesty being the most liberating tool was encouraging. I look forward to reading more by this author.
FYI to who ever reads this review NEVER HAVE A MIDLIFE CRISIS! The story centers around a family who has been thrown into the most bizarre circumstances all because Ben Armstead had some sort of breakdown. The heroine turns out to be his wife Helen, who kind of has a coming of age at the ripe old age of 40-something. She is the caracter I most cared about yet loathed at the same time. I wanted her to grow a back-bone and take hold instead of being railroaded into the circumstances life throws at you. Although she handles every hardship brilliantly, I wanted her to get mad or hit something at times.
Ben reveals to Helen early in the book that he's come to a crossroad in his life and wants out. Once he gets his wish things go from bad to worse. I'm not sure if Jonathan Dee made him purposely comical but I felt that every part of the story he was mentioned in was hysterical or ludicrous. And their adopted daughter Sara, who's a brat, is also a major caracter in the book. My biggest thing that ruins books for me are teens who are spoiled, selfish, rude, or just idiots. I believe she holds the torch for many of those traits. I did not like her at all.
Enough of my ranting about the caracters, I actually found this book to be quite enjoyable. The blurbs on the cover compare this book to Jonathan Franzen and Richard Ford but the first and only book I read by Franzen was not to my liking. Luckily, I really liked this book. It's a well-written novel about how one's self-destruction can be the perfect recipe for another's triumph. And the recurring theme of honesty being the most liberating tool was encouraging. I look forward to reading more by this author.
February 8, 2013
This book was so not worth the trouble. I was really excited to read Dee's new book, as I loved The Privileges even though it has nasty characters. Any author who can do that is a good author in my book. A Thousand Pardons also contains nasty characters, but unlike The Privileges is all expositional dialogue, silly doings and zero internalizing of anything. There's also very less pardon involved.
Here's the barely there construct. There's a man and a woman, Ben and Helen, who have an adopted girl called Sara. For some random reason Ben goes off the deep end, decides he's bored with his wife and child, and becomes obsessed with a younger co-worker at his law firm. The girl flips, charges him with sexual harassment, and there's a divorce, a potentially bankrupting law suit and a rehab in store for Ben. Helen is a society mom so far, and lands a job in a PR firm by accident and overnight becomes Lady Mercy. Well, she gets people to apologize for their mistakes (whether valid or not), and thereby rises up the corporate ladder. Meanwhile, as is supposedly typical of all working women, her hold on what makes her daughter tick slips so badly that she has no idea the girl is cutting class, basketball and traipsing around the city with an appropriately named Cutter. Oh, Sara also has found a sudden affinity towards her dad, now that he's loafing around doing nothing.
The book hits every cliché there is. Why is it that working women have problems being moms? Why is it that Sara misbehaving has to do with Helen having no time for and not because the girl is a teenager? Why does Ben have to go to such lengths to be a martyr? Why do we know nothing of the way a character is thinking or feeling until it's spoken out loud to another person? Why does Helen have such a meteoric rise in her career? Her "Apologize" shtick is so simple that anyone worth their business degree could do it, and it gets old after the million times she does it. It may work for certain cases, but for everything? She has no other technique at all, she doesn't know what to do when the thing doesn't work out, as we see in the case of the erring Catholics. Dee just moves right away from it, and we have no idea how the thing got resolved. I also hated that Hamilton Barth, the actor, got a perspective very early in the book, with tantalizing hints about a "ranch" and his inability to do something with it, and his alcoholism. Then we forget all about him until the latter half of the book. Never mind that the ranch trouble never gets explained, and his alcoholism is never fully dealt with. What do you know, he's a minor character in the book despite the heavy foreshadowing in the first half.
Sara, is a troublesome character. She's a stoic little thing, with hardly any thoughts about her parents' divorce, or her father's ignominy. She's Chinese, and her race is what pulls Cutter to her, as Cutter is black and has extreme thoughts about racism that Sara appears to share. Just as this gets interesting, Dee makes Cutter some weirdo, and yanks him out of Sara's life. Sara then throws around a lot of groundless accusations that she may or may not mean (we don't know, as we never get any of her thoughts) at her mother, who doesn't seem all that bothered about it. Oh, we're told how much Helen cares about improving her daughter's situation, but none of her actions signify that. Does she never meet the child's teachers? I wonder. Does she never say, hey, I want to come watch your game today - I want to know how that star athlete is doing? That's not stress from work, that's just lazy parenting. Let me not even talk about Ben at all, because he has a redemption arc that I didn't quite buy. Again, there's hardly any thought process, just a whole lot of dialogue. This is not satisfying, and I don't think this was a problem in The Privileges. There's also the fact that the whole thing is mind-numbingly boring. It's just over 200 pages, but I struggled to read it.
There are a few good points, the start with Ben's collapse, for example, is extremely well done. Dee writes some tantalizing side characters, Michael - Helen's first boss' lost son, Hamilton Barth, Bettina, Cutter; but pulls them out without explanation just when they are at their most interesting. It was hard to feel invested in any of it, and at the end it just felt like a waste of 200 pages and some hours of my time. I still give this two stars, but mostly because I remember The Privileges fondly.
I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.
Here's the barely there construct. There's a man and a woman, Ben and Helen, who have an adopted girl called Sara. For some random reason Ben goes off the deep end, decides he's bored with his wife and child, and becomes obsessed with a younger co-worker at his law firm. The girl flips, charges him with sexual harassment, and there's a divorce, a potentially bankrupting law suit and a rehab in store for Ben. Helen is a society mom so far, and lands a job in a PR firm by accident and overnight becomes Lady Mercy. Well, she gets people to apologize for their mistakes (whether valid or not), and thereby rises up the corporate ladder. Meanwhile, as is supposedly typical of all working women, her hold on what makes her daughter tick slips so badly that she has no idea the girl is cutting class, basketball and traipsing around the city with an appropriately named Cutter. Oh, Sara also has found a sudden affinity towards her dad, now that he's loafing around doing nothing.
The book hits every cliché there is. Why is it that working women have problems being moms? Why is it that Sara misbehaving has to do with Helen having no time for and not because the girl is a teenager? Why does Ben have to go to such lengths to be a martyr? Why do we know nothing of the way a character is thinking or feeling until it's spoken out loud to another person? Why does Helen have such a meteoric rise in her career? Her "Apologize" shtick is so simple that anyone worth their business degree could do it, and it gets old after the million times she does it. It may work for certain cases, but for everything? She has no other technique at all, she doesn't know what to do when the thing doesn't work out, as we see in the case of the erring Catholics. Dee just moves right away from it, and we have no idea how the thing got resolved. I also hated that Hamilton Barth, the actor, got a perspective very early in the book, with tantalizing hints about a "ranch" and his inability to do something with it, and his alcoholism. Then we forget all about him until the latter half of the book. Never mind that the ranch trouble never gets explained, and his alcoholism is never fully dealt with. What do you know, he's a minor character in the book despite the heavy foreshadowing in the first half.
Sara, is a troublesome character. She's a stoic little thing, with hardly any thoughts about her parents' divorce, or her father's ignominy. She's Chinese, and her race is what pulls Cutter to her, as Cutter is black and has extreme thoughts about racism that Sara appears to share. Just as this gets interesting, Dee makes Cutter some weirdo, and yanks him out of Sara's life. Sara then throws around a lot of groundless accusations that she may or may not mean (we don't know, as we never get any of her thoughts) at her mother, who doesn't seem all that bothered about it. Oh, we're told how much Helen cares about improving her daughter's situation, but none of her actions signify that. Does she never meet the child's teachers? I wonder. Does she never say, hey, I want to come watch your game today - I want to know how that star athlete is doing? That's not stress from work, that's just lazy parenting. Let me not even talk about Ben at all, because he has a redemption arc that I didn't quite buy. Again, there's hardly any thought process, just a whole lot of dialogue. This is not satisfying, and I don't think this was a problem in The Privileges. There's also the fact that the whole thing is mind-numbingly boring. It's just over 200 pages, but I struggled to read it.
There are a few good points, the start with Ben's collapse, for example, is extremely well done. Dee writes some tantalizing side characters, Michael - Helen's first boss' lost son, Hamilton Barth, Bettina, Cutter; but pulls them out without explanation just when they are at their most interesting. It was hard to feel invested in any of it, and at the end it just felt like a waste of 200 pages and some hours of my time. I still give this two stars, but mostly because I remember The Privileges fondly.
I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.
December 4, 2013
So many books today are being written about failed characters. They do stupid things, get caught, either get forgiven or ostracized , or when the book ends, the reader is left to decide the ultimate outcome. What is the message of these books? Often the main character does heinous things and gets away with it (Defending Jacob, The Dinner), while another character gets blamed for something he didn’t do or for something that seems justified, or for something trivial and is more severely punished than warranted. After reading so many like this, I am beginning to wonder if the ultimate message of most of these books is that society is upended, that we are doomed by our own selfishness and shallowness. Are we really so awful?
This book, like so many others is about affluence, and the unjustness, the unfairness of it when it falls to someone other than you. The Armsteads are just such a couple. They have an adopted Chinese child, Sara, who has a boyfriend who is black. This is her secret. They have pretty much everything they need or want, and yet, it simply doesn’t seem to be enough for them. On their “date” night, the name they give their evening out, when they visit a therapist to help them iron out their troubles, Ben blurts out an unhappy and hurtful confession which shocks his wife, Helen. He is, apparently, very unhappy and feels like he is suffocating in his current life and environment.
Shortly after this painful revelation, Ben does something very foolish to add richness and excitement to his life, and the consequences are enormous. He fools around with an employee, is set up and caught, arrested and sued. His career is over. The family is shattered and broken; the marriage is on the rocks.
Ben, who is a lawyer, finds he needs to hire one. In order to survive this tragic turn of events, he voluntarily goes away to rehab on a “trumped” up charge of alcoholism and DWI. Meanwhile, his lawyer attempts to keep him out of jail. To make ends meet, Helen eventually gets a job working for a small public relations firm owned by a Jewish man who has a ne’er do well son. She becomes the heroine.
Eventually, because of her heretofore “hidden talents”, Helen is offered a job with a larger company. Fittingly, Helen’s job is in crisis management, and, as luck would have it, she is good at it. Did the reader expect anything different? No, the reader did not. From here on in, the message of the book seems to be one of repentance and forgiveness. Helen is even hired to work with the church in the scandal involving pedophile priests. The politically correct messages are ever present and the theme of diversity is truly well represented in this book.
Each of the characters does foolish things but, most often, recognizes his/her situation before it is too late and solves the problem at hand. Sara knows her “boyfriend” is wrong for her and distances herself from him, Ben knows he has done a foolish thing, and he does everything in his power to repent and not repeat the offensive behavior. Helen realizes that temptation is everywhere and often gives advice she is incapable of following. The plot is fairly straightforward and transparent, and often contrived. The characters are a bit thinly developed, and their behavior is easily anticipated.
Helen’s message is always the same. Stop the bleeding, turn the situation around, do damage control. How do you do this? You come out and apologize, face the crisis head on, own up to your mistake and you will be forgiven. That has not always been my experience, but this is a novel. People don’t want to be treated like idiots. They want the truth. They can handle it Helen insists. However, it is these handlers, these “crisis managers” who create that truth which will be palatable to the public, using a media forum that is only too willing to help. Is that really the truth? I am sure we have all seem a media frenzy that does the opposite. After the apology, they ask for more of an apology, etc. So is it the public making the decision or being manipulated?
Apparently, the perception of truth reality is the key to redemption, not necessarily the reality itself. The idea is that people want to forgive, so if you confess (religious undertones here), you give them the opportunity to do that, and then supposedly you will be able to move on with your life. This theory works with individuals and corporations, and Helen’s gift is that she is able to successfully sell that idea to everyone. Yet, can Helen forgive her own husband for his errors after he admits the error of his ways, apologizes and pays for his mistakes? Perhaps it is easier to advise a stranger.
Although Helen’s advice to others is to confess and tell the truth, when an old friend of hers, a famous movie star, thinks he is in trouble and reaches out for her help, she is flattered and encourages him to hide and not reveal what he thinks he has done to the world, just yet. If he does, the scandal will probably destroy him and she does not believe he has actually done anything terribly wrong. In her effort to help him, she may even have destroyed evidence by having him “clean” up, by moving him from the place where the “crime” supposedly took place without calling in the police, even though there was obvious probable cause to do just that. In her effort to prove his innocence, she ignores the responsibility of her job, alienates her daughter, compromises her husband, and does not tell the truth as she so often advises others. Her behavior is contradictory to that which she espouses.
All of these unhappy, unfulfilled, unappreciative scheming, characters wanted to push the reset button. The haves were painted as selfish and greedy, while the have-nots were more deserving. The “evil rich” are on display as are the scheming “have-nots”. In the end, actions did not seem to matter, so long as public perception could be turned from negative to positive. Everything worked out in the “fantasyland” the author created.
This book, like so many others is about affluence, and the unjustness, the unfairness of it when it falls to someone other than you. The Armsteads are just such a couple. They have an adopted Chinese child, Sara, who has a boyfriend who is black. This is her secret. They have pretty much everything they need or want, and yet, it simply doesn’t seem to be enough for them. On their “date” night, the name they give their evening out, when they visit a therapist to help them iron out their troubles, Ben blurts out an unhappy and hurtful confession which shocks his wife, Helen. He is, apparently, very unhappy and feels like he is suffocating in his current life and environment.
Shortly after this painful revelation, Ben does something very foolish to add richness and excitement to his life, and the consequences are enormous. He fools around with an employee, is set up and caught, arrested and sued. His career is over. The family is shattered and broken; the marriage is on the rocks.
Ben, who is a lawyer, finds he needs to hire one. In order to survive this tragic turn of events, he voluntarily goes away to rehab on a “trumped” up charge of alcoholism and DWI. Meanwhile, his lawyer attempts to keep him out of jail. To make ends meet, Helen eventually gets a job working for a small public relations firm owned by a Jewish man who has a ne’er do well son. She becomes the heroine.
Eventually, because of her heretofore “hidden talents”, Helen is offered a job with a larger company. Fittingly, Helen’s job is in crisis management, and, as luck would have it, she is good at it. Did the reader expect anything different? No, the reader did not. From here on in, the message of the book seems to be one of repentance and forgiveness. Helen is even hired to work with the church in the scandal involving pedophile priests. The politically correct messages are ever present and the theme of diversity is truly well represented in this book.
Each of the characters does foolish things but, most often, recognizes his/her situation before it is too late and solves the problem at hand. Sara knows her “boyfriend” is wrong for her and distances herself from him, Ben knows he has done a foolish thing, and he does everything in his power to repent and not repeat the offensive behavior. Helen realizes that temptation is everywhere and often gives advice she is incapable of following. The plot is fairly straightforward and transparent, and often contrived. The characters are a bit thinly developed, and their behavior is easily anticipated.
Helen’s message is always the same. Stop the bleeding, turn the situation around, do damage control. How do you do this? You come out and apologize, face the crisis head on, own up to your mistake and you will be forgiven. That has not always been my experience, but this is a novel. People don’t want to be treated like idiots. They want the truth. They can handle it Helen insists. However, it is these handlers, these “crisis managers” who create that truth which will be palatable to the public, using a media forum that is only too willing to help. Is that really the truth? I am sure we have all seem a media frenzy that does the opposite. After the apology, they ask for more of an apology, etc. So is it the public making the decision or being manipulated?
Apparently, the perception of truth reality is the key to redemption, not necessarily the reality itself. The idea is that people want to forgive, so if you confess (religious undertones here), you give them the opportunity to do that, and then supposedly you will be able to move on with your life. This theory works with individuals and corporations, and Helen’s gift is that she is able to successfully sell that idea to everyone. Yet, can Helen forgive her own husband for his errors after he admits the error of his ways, apologizes and pays for his mistakes? Perhaps it is easier to advise a stranger.
Although Helen’s advice to others is to confess and tell the truth, when an old friend of hers, a famous movie star, thinks he is in trouble and reaches out for her help, she is flattered and encourages him to hide and not reveal what he thinks he has done to the world, just yet. If he does, the scandal will probably destroy him and she does not believe he has actually done anything terribly wrong. In her effort to help him, she may even have destroyed evidence by having him “clean” up, by moving him from the place where the “crime” supposedly took place without calling in the police, even though there was obvious probable cause to do just that. In her effort to prove his innocence, she ignores the responsibility of her job, alienates her daughter, compromises her husband, and does not tell the truth as she so often advises others. Her behavior is contradictory to that which she espouses.
All of these unhappy, unfulfilled, unappreciative scheming, characters wanted to push the reset button. The haves were painted as selfish and greedy, while the have-nots were more deserving. The “evil rich” are on display as are the scheming “have-nots”. In the end, actions did not seem to matter, so long as public perception could be turned from negative to positive. Everything worked out in the “fantasyland” the author created.
January 17, 2023
Well, as the universe tends to do.......
Yesterday I discovered Jonathan Dee and absolutely RAVED about his book The Locals. Seriously loved that book. Immediately started another of his, A Thousand Pardons, and this review could be titled "A thousand pardons from me for thinking I'd found a new favorite author."
Unbelievable plot - a successful lawyer, partner in a firm, married with child, has a mid-life crisis, lusts and fawns after a well-endowed female college intern, makes a fool of himself as he sexually harasses her, gets her to undress (just so he can see), are you seeing the foolishness of this plot?
He ends up fired, threatened with disbarment, jailed, divorced and that's not even the most unbelievable part of the book.
Wife, a 40 something housewife who hasn't worked in ages immediately gets a job working for a PR company, with no skills or experiences becomes the mom who gets bad corporate men to do the mea culpa tour, gets an even better job with tons of money and perks......and her shtick is "be sincere, admit to everything, and apologize." And they pay her big New York City bucks despite zero skills or education.
Throw in an adopted child who as a teen is sullen, angry, sneaky, generally unlikeable.
Anyway, Dee is now batting 500 and I have a third book in the queue. That one will determine if The Locals was an anomaly.
Yesterday I discovered Jonathan Dee and absolutely RAVED about his book The Locals. Seriously loved that book. Immediately started another of his, A Thousand Pardons, and this review could be titled "A thousand pardons from me for thinking I'd found a new favorite author."
Unbelievable plot - a successful lawyer, partner in a firm, married with child, has a mid-life crisis, lusts and fawns after a well-endowed female college intern, makes a fool of himself as he sexually harasses her, gets her to undress (just so he can see), are you seeing the foolishness of this plot?
He ends up fired, threatened with disbarment, jailed, divorced and that's not even the most unbelievable part of the book.
Wife, a 40 something housewife who hasn't worked in ages immediately gets a job working for a PR company, with no skills or experiences becomes the mom who gets bad corporate men to do the mea culpa tour, gets an even better job with tons of money and perks......and her shtick is "be sincere, admit to everything, and apologize." And they pay her big New York City bucks despite zero skills or education.
Throw in an adopted child who as a teen is sullen, angry, sneaky, generally unlikeable.
Anyway, Dee is now batting 500 and I have a third book in the queue. That one will determine if The Locals was an anomaly.
June 14, 2013
About 30 years ago someone removed bottles of Tylenol capsules from the shelves of a Chicago drugstore, added potassium cyanide to them, and returned them to the shelves. Seven people died. Johnson & Johnson, the parent company, cooperated with the police, FBI, FDA, and media, immediately withdrawing all Tylenol from the shelves, warning people not to take their product, and eventually offering to replace capsules with tablets. Product packaging changed overnight to the belligerent packaging we have today. It was the first really effective crisis management episode, with Johnson & Johnson, within a few months, in better shape than before the poisonings. Their success was based on apology followed by complete transparency.
Public relations and that subset of it called crisis management is big business these days. But despite the J&J example people and companies in trouble seem not to have learned the lesson that a prompt acceptance of responsibility without excuses is the most ethical and most effective way to handle a serious PR problem.
The protagonist of A Thousand Pardons, Helen Armstead, knows this instinctively and when her husband, Ben, has a spectacular mid-life crisis and she goes back to work, this is the way she handles some small-time crises for the clients of the four-person PR company that hires her. She soon is hired by a very large PR firm. But just as she is handed the biggest and most important case of her new career she finds herself trying to help a famous movie star whom she knew in elementary school (but who doesn't remember her) when he blacks out and thinks he has harmed a young woman. As her husband attempts to get back on his feet and her 14-year-old daughter gives her the grief that 14-year-olds so often do, she struggles to balance her work life, her personal life, and this project to aid the panicked but not very grateful star.
The characters in this book are engaging, even the out-of-control husband and the bratty daughter. The actor not so much. But Helen's career successes are entertaining as is Ben's attempt to straighten out his life. It is believable (if only just) that a world-famous man might turn to Helen for help when he found himself in serious trouble, and her short-term solution is a logical move. But somehow the second half of the book was unsatisfying for me.
The author of the novel, Jonathan Dee, studied under John Hersey, was an editor at The Paris Review, and had a novel (The Privileges) short-listed for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize. His prose is smooth and this is not a difficult book to read. The character development of the Armstead family is well done. The plot is believable (if only just.) The book will probably do very well. And some readers will like it very much indeed. I read it as part of early filtering of novels for the 2014 Buff Orpington Tournament and I will recommend that it be included but with reservations.
Public relations and that subset of it called crisis management is big business these days. But despite the J&J example people and companies in trouble seem not to have learned the lesson that a prompt acceptance of responsibility without excuses is the most ethical and most effective way to handle a serious PR problem.
The protagonist of A Thousand Pardons, Helen Armstead, knows this instinctively and when her husband, Ben, has a spectacular mid-life crisis and she goes back to work, this is the way she handles some small-time crises for the clients of the four-person PR company that hires her. She soon is hired by a very large PR firm. But just as she is handed the biggest and most important case of her new career she finds herself trying to help a famous movie star whom she knew in elementary school (but who doesn't remember her) when he blacks out and thinks he has harmed a young woman. As her husband attempts to get back on his feet and her 14-year-old daughter gives her the grief that 14-year-olds so often do, she struggles to balance her work life, her personal life, and this project to aid the panicked but not very grateful star.
The characters in this book are engaging, even the out-of-control husband and the bratty daughter. The actor not so much. But Helen's career successes are entertaining as is Ben's attempt to straighten out his life. It is believable (if only just) that a world-famous man might turn to Helen for help when he found himself in serious trouble, and her short-term solution is a logical move. But somehow the second half of the book was unsatisfying for me.
The author of the novel, Jonathan Dee, studied under John Hersey, was an editor at The Paris Review, and had a novel (The Privileges) short-listed for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize. His prose is smooth and this is not a difficult book to read. The character development of the Armstead family is well done. The plot is believable (if only just.) The book will probably do very well. And some readers will like it very much indeed. I read it as part of early filtering of novels for the 2014 Buff Orpington Tournament and I will recommend that it be included but with reservations.
October 21, 2012
I received a copy of this from NetGalley. I had not previously read anything by Jonathan Dee, so I wonder if I'm lacking any important context of the author's work.
I see he is being promoted as similar to Jonathan Franzen, which isn't all that helpful since with Franzen, I have loved one book and hated the other. I see what they're getting at, with the types of characters, but in a loose sense one could make similar comparisons to anyone writing about normal Americans living normal lives with common problems. The genius that has to happen for this kind of writing to really grab you is some level of connection with the story or the characters.
Unfortunately, for me this never happened. I just finished the book this morning and already have to focus to remember the events of it. It is well-written, but the basic story isn't all that interesting, and the moments of highest drama felt a bit forced. That's the danger of writing about middle of the road people, and I don't want to punish Dee for it. Perhaps he should be awarded for subtlety. At least the central characters seem to function from an understandable motivation - a fear of mundane life, a fear of allowing life to carry them along.
"Helen, at some point, forgot to find anything else to want from life, and this had turned her into a boring person, a burden, a part of the upkeep, and she might have floated along mindlessly like that forever...."
Well, precisely. Helen is one of the key characters, at least the character who goes through the broadest change. There are a few minor characters in the novel (Cutter, Hamilton) who I think I would have rather read novels about.
"Turns out it's not so enticing... Turns out it's kind of frightening, being nobody."
I see he is being promoted as similar to Jonathan Franzen, which isn't all that helpful since with Franzen, I have loved one book and hated the other. I see what they're getting at, with the types of characters, but in a loose sense one could make similar comparisons to anyone writing about normal Americans living normal lives with common problems. The genius that has to happen for this kind of writing to really grab you is some level of connection with the story or the characters.
Unfortunately, for me this never happened. I just finished the book this morning and already have to focus to remember the events of it. It is well-written, but the basic story isn't all that interesting, and the moments of highest drama felt a bit forced. That's the danger of writing about middle of the road people, and I don't want to punish Dee for it. Perhaps he should be awarded for subtlety. At least the central characters seem to function from an understandable motivation - a fear of mundane life, a fear of allowing life to carry them along.
"Helen, at some point, forgot to find anything else to want from life, and this had turned her into a boring person, a burden, a part of the upkeep, and she might have floated along mindlessly like that forever...."
Well, precisely. Helen is one of the key characters, at least the character who goes through the broadest change. There are a few minor characters in the novel (Cutter, Hamilton) who I think I would have rather read novels about.
"Turns out it's not so enticing... Turns out it's kind of frightening, being nobody."
July 12, 2013
Very slim book. Very unbelievable. Very sparse. Very rushed. Very forgettable.
The premise was good. A husband who can't bear his boring days, his stay at home wife who's very upset when he massively screws up, and their adopted Chinese daughter who takes the brunt of parents too self involved to pay attention to her.
But, after a nice beginning, the husband goes away to rehab and then jail in shame and the stay at home wife takes a train to Manhattan, goes on 3 interviews, gets a job and then becomes some PR hotshot who can make her clients craft perfect apologies and moves up the ladder in Manhattan. Yep, very realistic. By the end, these people deserved their miserable lives. And I was, in turn, either bored or annoyed with them.
It felt very rushed at the end, the 'mystery' was a throwaway, and not a lot of it made sense. And it could have used a nice tidy 'tie it all together' chapter. But, it felt like even the author was bored at that point.
The premise was good. A husband who can't bear his boring days, his stay at home wife who's very upset when he massively screws up, and their adopted Chinese daughter who takes the brunt of parents too self involved to pay attention to her.
But, after a nice beginning, the husband goes away to rehab and then jail in shame and the stay at home wife takes a train to Manhattan, goes on 3 interviews, gets a job and then becomes some PR hotshot who can make her clients craft perfect apologies and moves up the ladder in Manhattan. Yep, very realistic. By the end, these people deserved their miserable lives. And I was, in turn, either bored or annoyed with them.
It felt very rushed at the end, the 'mystery' was a throwaway, and not a lot of it made sense. And it could have used a nice tidy 'tie it all together' chapter. But, it felt like even the author was bored at that point.
May 3, 2013
This book is all flash & no payoff. Within 7 pages I read this passage, “Which could only be followed by a momentous silence; but since silence was anathema to Dr. Becket, on the grounds that silence might belong to anyone but vapid professional jargon was something that could bear her own distinctive stamp . . “ & I laughed out loud & thought, Oh boy here we go! but all the pretty words can’t detract from the terrible story & the maddening awfulness of the ending.
August 5, 2013
Disjointed is the word that comes to mind with the plot of this book. The puzzle pieces were all there (plus a few extra that seemed to belong to a different puzzle altogether), but you had to try too hard to make them fit.
The prose itself was superb. Jonathan Dee's apt observations about a marriage that is in the throes of dying were painful to read, sheer perfection. 'It's like a death sentence coming back to the house every night.' and 'I am bored to near panic by my home and my work and my wife and my daughter.' The 'toxicity of pity' emanating from Helen's friends and neighbors was almost palpable, so real it was like a slap in the face.
Other reviewers have noted it, but it bears mentioning again - the inexplicable ease with which Helen, a 40-something woman who has not worked out of the home in years manages to land four job interviews the first day she starts looking for work and then garners a power job in a Manhattan PR firm. All this, with no experience in the field of crisis management. And then to discover that she just happens to have the gift of cajoling powerful men into apologizing for their misdeeds in order to mete out damage control and steer major corporations back onto the right path . . . this is a piece you really have to force to fit.
This started out so strong, but in the end it just tried to do too much. Nevertheless, the prose was so good I have every intention of reading The Privileges. This was a First-reads giveaway, thank you.
The prose itself was superb. Jonathan Dee's apt observations about a marriage that is in the throes of dying were painful to read, sheer perfection. 'It's like a death sentence coming back to the house every night.' and 'I am bored to near panic by my home and my work and my wife and my daughter.' The 'toxicity of pity' emanating from Helen's friends and neighbors was almost palpable, so real it was like a slap in the face.
Other reviewers have noted it, but it bears mentioning again - the inexplicable ease with which Helen, a 40-something woman who has not worked out of the home in years manages to land four job interviews the first day she starts looking for work and then garners a power job in a Manhattan PR firm. All this, with no experience in the field of crisis management. And then to discover that she just happens to have the gift of cajoling powerful men into apologizing for their misdeeds in order to mete out damage control and steer major corporations back onto the right path . . . this is a piece you really have to force to fit.
This started out so strong, but in the end it just tried to do too much. Nevertheless, the prose was so good I have every intention of reading The Privileges. This was a First-reads giveaway, thank you.
March 27, 2014
Dee is a very good writer. His prose is polished and effortless. His milieu (at least the two novels I've read thus far) is the educated upper middle class. Here, a family falls apart. A marriage that has been in decline for awhile disintegrates, the husband is sued for sexual assault by a young female associate at his law firm and ends up serving jail time for a DWI. His humiliated wife takes their 13-year old adopted Asian daughter and moves from the New York suburbs into Manhattan, where she tries to rebuild her life with a public relations job - something she discovers she has a rare knack for.
That was really the only truly unbelievable plot point: Helen has been a stay at home mother for 13 years, yet is able to land a job at a tiny PR firm, a field in which she has no experience, immediately - because the other two applicants were problematic. This is in the wake of the financial crisis - remember that? We're still not out of it. Millions of people lost their jobs. In reality there would not have been three applicants for a single PR job in Manhattan. There would have been five hundred. And the resume of someone who had been out of the workforce for 13 years would have gone in the garbage at the 30-second mark. Other than that completely bullshit fairy tale, the novel held together fairly well. And it wasn't 600 pages, which I appreciated. Some novelists let a story drag on too long. If anything, this was wrapped up too quickly and superficially.
August 3, 2013
Why did I not like this book? Let me count the ways, in no particular order. I did not like the narrator: it presumes a shared perspective with the reader, and I didn't share it. Take, for example, the first sentence: "Helen tried not to look at her watch, because looking at your watch never changed anything...." Why does the narrator address me and my watch? I do not even wear a watch, and if I did, I don't want to hear this narrator telling me what my perception of my watch ought to be. It is this small-minded kind of so-called observation parading itself as wisdom and the interpretations of each and every character's feelings and thoughts that run through the novel that annoyed me no end. In short, Dee's narrator was incessantly telling me how to regard or interpret or feel about each character and event - and that was to regard them, as he does, mostly negatively and critically.
Let me give you another example of this overweening omniscient narrative style, which occurs near the end of the novel. Helen is the wife, Ben the husband, Sara the daughter. "Sara had a summer job at the multiplex in town, taking tickets. She had to wear a red vest and complained of the toxic effects of prolonged exposure to morons." This is good; the narrator is letting Sara tell us how she feels about customers.
Now, compare to the next page: "Helen laid her hand on Ben's arm, feeling sorry already for this overmatched boy [who is going out with Sara]. Sara was probably inventing her own field sobriety test for him right now." The narrator is telling us how Helen is thinking about what her daughter is thinking. Could not Dee simply have Helen say this aloud to Ben? Was it laziness on his part, that it was easier not to turn the line into a quote?
I suppose I can attribute the absurdity of the plot to the narrator, too: it is so on-edge and manipulative, right down to the teenaged Sara and her angst that it grated on my sensibilities. Hey, I love irony, but not when it is wielded so heavy-handedly.
Somewhere along the line I came across a cross-reference to a review Dee wrote about a literary style called "transgressive fiction." [See http://perpetualfolly.blogspot.com/20...] I thought perhaps he might be trying it out himself in "A Thousand Pardons." Which brings me to another dislike. There wasn't a shred of humor in this novel. Not even ironic humor. Was this more evidence of some deep-seated urge to wield the razor-sharp knife of the transgressive fictional style? If so, I hope Dee will take a few more walks on the wild side, because this novel's attempt to express the form is more like Mr. and Mrs. Bridge smoking a joint.
OK, so to sum up, I didn't like the narrator, I didn't like the characters, and I didn't like the story much, either - it was sooo pedestrian and shallow. I didn't care about these people because they were puppets being manipulated to play out the story Dee concocted for them - it was all too neat and predictable. And even if I were to accept that plot assumption, it wasn't well done: you could see the puppet's strings quite clearly.
So why didn't I return the book to the library after page 50? I don't have a good answer. I tried telling myself it was because I wanted to see what happened [one of the most primary of reasons for reading a novel] but in the final analysis, that wasn't it. I mean, hey, "Gone Girl" is a nasty book, but Flynn not only drove me like oxen under the whip to keep turning pages, but also wielded that knifeblade of irony with far more wit, sophistication, and humor than Dee. Perhaps I kept reading because I wanted to see if Dee would, at some point, redeem himself. But I guess I forgot there is no redemption. No such thing. Nope.
Let me give you another example of this overweening omniscient narrative style, which occurs near the end of the novel. Helen is the wife, Ben the husband, Sara the daughter. "Sara had a summer job at the multiplex in town, taking tickets. She had to wear a red vest and complained of the toxic effects of prolonged exposure to morons." This is good; the narrator is letting Sara tell us how she feels about customers.
Now, compare to the next page: "Helen laid her hand on Ben's arm, feeling sorry already for this overmatched boy [who is going out with Sara]. Sara was probably inventing her own field sobriety test for him right now." The narrator is telling us how Helen is thinking about what her daughter is thinking. Could not Dee simply have Helen say this aloud to Ben? Was it laziness on his part, that it was easier not to turn the line into a quote?
I suppose I can attribute the absurdity of the plot to the narrator, too: it is so on-edge and manipulative, right down to the teenaged Sara and her angst that it grated on my sensibilities. Hey, I love irony, but not when it is wielded so heavy-handedly.
Somewhere along the line I came across a cross-reference to a review Dee wrote about a literary style called "transgressive fiction." [See http://perpetualfolly.blogspot.com/20...] I thought perhaps he might be trying it out himself in "A Thousand Pardons." Which brings me to another dislike. There wasn't a shred of humor in this novel. Not even ironic humor. Was this more evidence of some deep-seated urge to wield the razor-sharp knife of the transgressive fictional style? If so, I hope Dee will take a few more walks on the wild side, because this novel's attempt to express the form is more like Mr. and Mrs. Bridge smoking a joint.
OK, so to sum up, I didn't like the narrator, I didn't like the characters, and I didn't like the story much, either - it was sooo pedestrian and shallow. I didn't care about these people because they were puppets being manipulated to play out the story Dee concocted for them - it was all too neat and predictable. And even if I were to accept that plot assumption, it wasn't well done: you could see the puppet's strings quite clearly.
So why didn't I return the book to the library after page 50? I don't have a good answer. I tried telling myself it was because I wanted to see what happened [one of the most primary of reasons for reading a novel] but in the final analysis, that wasn't it. I mean, hey, "Gone Girl" is a nasty book, but Flynn not only drove me like oxen under the whip to keep turning pages, but also wielded that knifeblade of irony with far more wit, sophistication, and humor than Dee. Perhaps I kept reading because I wanted to see if Dee would, at some point, redeem himself. But I guess I forgot there is no redemption. No such thing. Nope.
March 28, 2013
A fairytale with lessons for grownups
Early in “A Thousand Pardons,” Jonathan Dee’s crafty and wise parable of loss and redemption, a seasoned professional describes how the practice of public relations works: “We tell stories. We tell stories to the public because stories are what people pay attention to, what they remember.”
Stories, indeed, are what persuade and entertain and become like stickpins in our brain. And Dee, in his newest tale of soaring hubris and crashing ennui, is a really, really good story teller at the top of his game. I read the novel in January and believe “A Thousand Pardons” is one of the best books I’ll read in 2013. The story resonates like a modern-day fairytale with lessons to be learned by grownups.
Ben and Helen Armstead, two forty-something halves of a privileged exurban couple and their adopted daughter Sara, a teenager, who to make things more racially resonant is Chinese-born. Ben is a partner at a prestigious Manhattan law firm. Helen raises their daughter and minds their status and their fashionable, expansive ranch-style home in Rensselaer Valley, a few commuter stops outside the city.
For Ben every single day is an “existential crisis.” That’s until things get even worse and the couple’s life together explodes spectacularly after Ben surrenders to temptation and is subsequently accused of attempted sexual assault. This on top of DWI charges “felonious enough to threaten his career.” The DWI charges are filed after Ben is found just after sunrise unresponsive (passed out) lying across the front seat of his Audi, which he had driven into a ditch just a few miles short of making it home safely.
After the unraveling, comes the coping and for each member of the Armstead family a valiant effort at rebuilding or more aptly starting over and moving in a new, untested direction. Helen finds a professional calling in public relations where she becomes a maven of apology, a proponent of always saying you’re sorry as an extremely successful crisis management strategy. Ben serves time and drifts about. Sara, in the way of all adolescents, begins the journey to define her place in the world.
All this is told with admirable simplicity, clarity of prose and sharp dialogue that sounds like people actually talking – all of which keep story moving, pages turning. Don’t expect plausibility and please don’t be disappointed if it seems to you all the threads aren’t neatly tied together in the end. Dee has the psychological insight and has created people you come to know and have empathy for. Ben, Helen and Sara become the most authentic characters you’re likely to become acquainted with anytime soon. To my mind, that authenticity is “A Thousand Pardons” greatest attribute and achievement. Then, too, it’s simply a great read, a story compelling and current.
In a word: Resonates
Early in “A Thousand Pardons,” Jonathan Dee’s crafty and wise parable of loss and redemption, a seasoned professional describes how the practice of public relations works: “We tell stories. We tell stories to the public because stories are what people pay attention to, what they remember.”
Stories, indeed, are what persuade and entertain and become like stickpins in our brain. And Dee, in his newest tale of soaring hubris and crashing ennui, is a really, really good story teller at the top of his game. I read the novel in January and believe “A Thousand Pardons” is one of the best books I’ll read in 2013. The story resonates like a modern-day fairytale with lessons to be learned by grownups.
Ben and Helen Armstead, two forty-something halves of a privileged exurban couple and their adopted daughter Sara, a teenager, who to make things more racially resonant is Chinese-born. Ben is a partner at a prestigious Manhattan law firm. Helen raises their daughter and minds their status and their fashionable, expansive ranch-style home in Rensselaer Valley, a few commuter stops outside the city.
For Ben every single day is an “existential crisis.” That’s until things get even worse and the couple’s life together explodes spectacularly after Ben surrenders to temptation and is subsequently accused of attempted sexual assault. This on top of DWI charges “felonious enough to threaten his career.” The DWI charges are filed after Ben is found just after sunrise unresponsive (passed out) lying across the front seat of his Audi, which he had driven into a ditch just a few miles short of making it home safely.
After the unraveling, comes the coping and for each member of the Armstead family a valiant effort at rebuilding or more aptly starting over and moving in a new, untested direction. Helen finds a professional calling in public relations where she becomes a maven of apology, a proponent of always saying you’re sorry as an extremely successful crisis management strategy. Ben serves time and drifts about. Sara, in the way of all adolescents, begins the journey to define her place in the world.
All this is told with admirable simplicity, clarity of prose and sharp dialogue that sounds like people actually talking – all of which keep story moving, pages turning. Don’t expect plausibility and please don’t be disappointed if it seems to you all the threads aren’t neatly tied together in the end. Dee has the psychological insight and has created people you come to know and have empathy for. Ben, Helen and Sara become the most authentic characters you’re likely to become acquainted with anytime soon. To my mind, that authenticity is “A Thousand Pardons” greatest attribute and achievement. Then, too, it’s simply a great read, a story compelling and current.
In a word: Resonates
December 12, 2016
Having throughly enjoyed The Privileges and most of Palladio, I was looking forward to reading another novel by Jonathan Dee who is clearly a talented writer (The Privileges was a Pulitzer finalist).
But this book is pretty much a disappointment on every level. The plot doesn't so much evolve as jump from one convenient stepping stone to the next. The characters are all rather stereotyped. And the basic premise of the story seems flawed. And then, after a long set up of what you think the theme of the book is going to be, the subject the author wants to explore in his story, he forgets all about that for the second half of the book and tells us another story about a movie star struggling with his fame. Even though the stories are related through the main character, it seems odd to spend pages and pages setting up a theme and then to disregard it completely.
After the collapse of her marriage, Helen Armstead discovers she has a gift for crisis management. But her gift seems to be persuading people that only an abject and completely sincere apology will fix things - even if they are not actually to blame. My problems started here as I think that apologising has been part of crisis management strategies for quite a long time. So, I don't quite understand what Dee is trying to do. Maybe it’s satire? I don’t think it is, though.
However, as I say, it doesn’t really matter, because he forgets all about that theme for most of the second half of the book and tells us another story. I actually quite liked the errant movie star who features heavily in this second story, but the whole thing seems very disjointed.
The whole book seems a bit of a mess to me. There are some funny bits and some good observations about fame and relationships. But it feels all over the place. Which might just be me. But I don’t think it is.
But this book is pretty much a disappointment on every level. The plot doesn't so much evolve as jump from one convenient stepping stone to the next. The characters are all rather stereotyped. And the basic premise of the story seems flawed. And then, after a long set up of what you think the theme of the book is going to be, the subject the author wants to explore in his story, he forgets all about that for the second half of the book and tells us another story about a movie star struggling with his fame. Even though the stories are related through the main character, it seems odd to spend pages and pages setting up a theme and then to disregard it completely.
After the collapse of her marriage, Helen Armstead discovers she has a gift for crisis management. But her gift seems to be persuading people that only an abject and completely sincere apology will fix things - even if they are not actually to blame. My problems started here as I think that apologising has been part of crisis management strategies for quite a long time. So, I don't quite understand what Dee is trying to do. Maybe it’s satire? I don’t think it is, though.
However, as I say, it doesn’t really matter, because he forgets all about that theme for most of the second half of the book and tells us another story. I actually quite liked the errant movie star who features heavily in this second story, but the whole thing seems very disjointed.
The whole book seems a bit of a mess to me. There are some funny bits and some good observations about fame and relationships. But it feels all over the place. Which might just be me. But I don’t think it is.
March 26, 2013
I like Jonathan Dee's writing --I looked forward to this book after having read "The Privileges"....(which is still one of my favorite contemporary novels).
I gave this book (his new release), 4 stars, but its really a 'little' less than 4 stars for me.
I still liked it --
but it was 'one' sentence which was just too unbelievable (to the story itself) --which made me 'pause' and say to myself...
"REALLY"??? "Oh Come on, you do 'not' know Hamilton the same way you know your ex-husband, Ben. (this sentence sounded too silly)...
The sentence is:
"They were the two most unreliable men she knew, which made it hard to feel good about any plan that depended on how they acted when they were out of her sight".
The relationship Helen had with Hamilton was too weak (in authentic closeness) -- to state her opinion so strong as to say "he was one of two most unreliabe men she knew???" ---
Another part of the story: The daughter, Sara, (who was adopted --and Asian) -- might have been developed more also ---(why was she being Asian all that important to the story one way or another?)---I'm still not really sure.
This book is not without flaws --- not as good as "The Privileges" -- but I was still completely engaged -- and just like "The Privileges" --- its a book in which 'disscussions' with others makes this book exciting to read.
Jonathan Dee 'always' makes me think, (note: I had many heated discussions with friends over his book "The Privilges" --it was fun!)
I really am a huge Jonathan Dee fan. (I'm ready for more 'discussons' about 'this' book with my friends)---but you'll have to read it first!
I gave this book (his new release), 4 stars, but its really a 'little' less than 4 stars for me.
I still liked it --
but it was 'one' sentence which was just too unbelievable (to the story itself) --which made me 'pause' and say to myself...
"REALLY"??? "Oh Come on, you do 'not' know Hamilton the same way you know your ex-husband, Ben. (this sentence sounded too silly)...
The sentence is:
"They were the two most unreliable men she knew, which made it hard to feel good about any plan that depended on how they acted when they were out of her sight".
The relationship Helen had with Hamilton was too weak (in authentic closeness) -- to state her opinion so strong as to say "he was one of two most unreliabe men she knew???" ---
Another part of the story: The daughter, Sara, (who was adopted --and Asian) -- might have been developed more also ---(why was she being Asian all that important to the story one way or another?)---I'm still not really sure.
This book is not without flaws --- not as good as "The Privileges" -- but I was still completely engaged -- and just like "The Privileges" --- its a book in which 'disscussions' with others makes this book exciting to read.
Jonathan Dee 'always' makes me think, (note: I had many heated discussions with friends over his book "The Privilges" --it was fun!)
I really am a huge Jonathan Dee fan. (I'm ready for more 'discussons' about 'this' book with my friends)---but you'll have to read it first!
June 5, 2013
2.5 stars, really. Having never read Jonathan Dee before, I had very few expectations for this book, which was a good thing because this book was slow and lacked character and plot development. After a very promising start wherein Ben basically has a meltdown and ruins his seemingly perfect family situation, the book spirals downwards and does not recover. While Ben and Helen's emotional detachment from each other and their lives in general seems real enough, there was very little growth by either following their divorce. More than 200 pages later, we find them in the exact location (literally) they were in at page one. This lack of development was disappointing to me.
Sara, Ben and Helen's teenage daughter, was not exactly a gem, but was a deep character with emotional depth. Jonathan Dee was able to portray Sara's angst, anguish, and confusion about being a teenager and a teenage daughter of divorced parents quite clearly.
I don't know if I read this book too fast or if I read it too soon after just finishing the deeply moving A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, but it just didn't do that much for me. I liked it, but probably not enough to recommend it to anyone I know.
Sara, Ben and Helen's teenage daughter, was not exactly a gem, but was a deep character with emotional depth. Jonathan Dee was able to portray Sara's angst, anguish, and confusion about being a teenager and a teenage daughter of divorced parents quite clearly.
I don't know if I read this book too fast or if I read it too soon after just finishing the deeply moving A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, but it just didn't do that much for me. I liked it, but probably not enough to recommend it to anyone I know.
March 14, 2013
From the hype comparing Dee to Jonathan Franzen and Richard Russo, I thought I was in for a true literary treat. All to that the fact that he was a finalist for a Pulitzer and I was excited to find a new author.
Sorry to say this book was just so-so. His writing style is good but the content was lacking and much of it bordered on the unbelievable. Since it was a short novel, I went ahead and finished it but certainly don't have any incentive to read any of his other offerings.
Sorry to say this book was just so-so. His writing style is good but the content was lacking and much of it bordered on the unbelievable. Since it was a short novel, I went ahead and finished it but certainly don't have any incentive to read any of his other offerings.
May 13, 2016
So much better than The Privileges! I enjoyed most of the characters, I'll spare you my one nagging dislikable one. I thought the story was really a unique twist on an old tale, that being said it did get rather slow in the middle and I think so much more was promised with the main protagonists PR job. Sadly, that fabulous part jot lost somewhere but thankfully I liked the weird turn that made no sense. Possibly, another reader might dislike it. 3.5??? I don't know really. Now I'm confused!
May 2, 2019
3.5 this book kept me turning pages. The characters were likeable. it was like 3 books in one. The focus of the book changed as I progressed
April 23, 2013
Although I would not class A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan Dee as one of the best books I have read, I did enjoy it. The problem is, I can't quite decide what it is about the book tha drew me in. The item in the book that sets the story in motion is a glaringly bad decision made by Ben Armstead, a middle aged lawyer in the midst of a mid life crisis. When Ben decides to have a fling with a summer intern in his office, not only does his whole life start to unravel, but so do the lives of his wife, Helen, and daughter, Sarah. Dee spends the rest of the book detailing how these three characters work to get their lives back on track.
Eventually Helen becomes aware that she is going to have to go to work, and surprisingly, lands a job at a one-man PR firm in Manhattan. It is in the pursuit of doing her job that Helen comes into her own, counseling clients that a sincere apology can do a lot more for your image than trying to hide from the truth will. I have to admit, I found this idea of taking responsibility for your actions and living up to your commitments refreshing. It is probably the best thing about this book, and something that I feel is sorely lacking in large portions of our current society. The more respect and success that Helen garnered by promoting this idea, the more I liked the book. I also liked the contrast that the author presented during the one crisis when Helen deviates from this approach. It is the inclusion of this crisis and what it highlights about business as usual in today's society that really made the book for me.
Another plus was the straightforward method of telling the story that the author used. This is not a complex and twisted story of what motivates people and drives them to make the choices that they make. If it were, I may have given it 5 stars. As it is, I enjoyed the straightforward method that he used in telling his story, and again, found it refreshing.
The characters in the book were certainly not it's strongest draw. I can only think of one character who did not come across as mostly weak and ineffectual. That character was Helen's first boss and he did not have a very large role in the book. That is not to say that the other characters did not have short moments of brilliance, but they were just too few and far between for me. They were, though, somewhat redeeming and the things that kept me reading.
In the published description of the book the overlying theme of the book is stated as "what do we really want when we ask for forgiveness?" I felt it was more along the line of, "what are we really looking for when we realize that we have made a mistake?", but all in all, I felt the question raised was worth exploring and that Jonathan Dee did a reasonable, although not exceptional, job of exploring it.
Eventually Helen becomes aware that she is going to have to go to work, and surprisingly, lands a job at a one-man PR firm in Manhattan. It is in the pursuit of doing her job that Helen comes into her own, counseling clients that a sincere apology can do a lot more for your image than trying to hide from the truth will. I have to admit, I found this idea of taking responsibility for your actions and living up to your commitments refreshing. It is probably the best thing about this book, and something that I feel is sorely lacking in large portions of our current society. The more respect and success that Helen garnered by promoting this idea, the more I liked the book. I also liked the contrast that the author presented during the one crisis when Helen deviates from this approach. It is the inclusion of this crisis and what it highlights about business as usual in today's society that really made the book for me.
Another plus was the straightforward method of telling the story that the author used. This is not a complex and twisted story of what motivates people and drives them to make the choices that they make. If it were, I may have given it 5 stars. As it is, I enjoyed the straightforward method that he used in telling his story, and again, found it refreshing.
The characters in the book were certainly not it's strongest draw. I can only think of one character who did not come across as mostly weak and ineffectual. That character was Helen's first boss and he did not have a very large role in the book. That is not to say that the other characters did not have short moments of brilliance, but they were just too few and far between for me. They were, though, somewhat redeeming and the things that kept me reading.
In the published description of the book the overlying theme of the book is stated as "what do we really want when we ask for forgiveness?" I felt it was more along the line of, "what are we really looking for when we realize that we have made a mistake?", but all in all, I felt the question raised was worth exploring and that Jonathan Dee did a reasonable, although not exceptional, job of exploring it.
November 8, 2012
A Thousand Pardons is a beautifully written and engrossing story about marriage, divorce, celebrity and public relations with their companion wrinkles and tragedies and the ever present need for forgiveness. The characters are not particularly affecting, perhaps too removed from the reader as well as from each other, but their stories are and Dee presents them with skill and insight . The section involving the two men marooned together in the house was amusing and truthful. The ending leaves me in doubt as to this family making the changes necessary to sustain their new lives. The teenage daughter is insufferable. The husband is a cipher. The celebrity actor and the wife were most appealing and their stories sustained my interest in the book. I did read it quickly and eagerly. If you are looking for a runaway read, I recommend A Thousand Pardons for the writing and its modern story line. If you are a fan of character development and psychological insight, perhaps you might prefer Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic or Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins or Jean Thompson's The Year We Left Home.
March 14, 2013
I can't decide whether this is a wonderful book or just a trite light read. I read it because the excerpt on Amazon drew me in so quickly that I was brought up short when the excerpt ended and realized I had blown through 17 pages in about 4 minutes. Then I bought it at an airport bookstore and read the entire thing cover to cover on a flight from San Francisco to DC. These two facts would suggest I loved the book. But I'm not convinced. The story is a cliche tale of privileged suburban marital strife overlaid with what could be a Tom Wolfe or Stieg Larrson subplot of grit and despair. Big law firm partner brought low by sex and booze -- has promise but that is only about 10 pages of the story and the rest of the time the suburban marital strife tones prevail. The rest of the grit and despair story is sometimes unconvincing.
But the writing is unobstrusive enough that I plowed through the thing in five hours, and I did enjoy the moral analysis of the world of "crisis management."
I think time will tell whether the story hangs together as period literature or merely entertaining fluff. Not that there is anything wrong with entertaining fluff -- it was clearly what my mind craved on that five hour flight....
But the writing is unobstrusive enough that I plowed through the thing in five hours, and I did enjoy the moral analysis of the world of "crisis management."
I think time will tell whether the story hangs together as period literature or merely entertaining fluff. Not that there is anything wrong with entertaining fluff -- it was clearly what my mind craved on that five hour flight....
June 11, 2013
The consequences of major life choice mistakes are the centerpiece of this novel. The characters are themselves compelling and reasonably representative of how successful, 21st century people eventually are forced to confront their flaws.
It's a curious book in some ways. The internal struggles each character faces are informative and unsettling, both the adults and the pre-teens. We get a peek at the disillusionment of an attorney numbed by his life, his controlling wife who expects the ideal family model and then a surprise career to be her calling, a teenager caught in the cross-fire of a parents who have become undone, and an actor who goes up in flames as a result of his fame.
The main woman character unexpectedly discovers that she has a true talent for PR crisis management--particularly the art and power of admissions, apologies, and pardons. That theme becomes the struggle which impacts each character and entangles them.
The end of the book seemed awfully contrived to me. The circumstances came across as outlandish and unconvincing. In spite of that, I felt the human struggle was important and a cautionary tale in the world today.
It's a curious book in some ways. The internal struggles each character faces are informative and unsettling, both the adults and the pre-teens. We get a peek at the disillusionment of an attorney numbed by his life, his controlling wife who expects the ideal family model and then a surprise career to be her calling, a teenager caught in the cross-fire of a parents who have become undone, and an actor who goes up in flames as a result of his fame.
The main woman character unexpectedly discovers that she has a true talent for PR crisis management--particularly the art and power of admissions, apologies, and pardons. That theme becomes the struggle which impacts each character and entangles them.
The end of the book seemed awfully contrived to me. The circumstances came across as outlandish and unconvincing. In spite of that, I felt the human struggle was important and a cautionary tale in the world today.
January 4, 2013
I've always liked Jonathan Dee's writing, although not always his characters, and in this book, I feel as if he was riding above the characters and the story line, never fully entrenched, so I never felt fully involved. A lot happens, a lot of it a little hard to believe, especially the woman who hasn't worked in 13 years who gets four interviews the minute she starts job hunting without any specific experience [has Dee checked out the job search world lately?] and then realizes a stellar nearly shocking command of work previously unknown to her, while her adolescent daughter is suddenly on her own, dancing on the edge of the proverbial pin, but nothing really happens, and a husband who had a bit of a breakdown and behaved badly, who turns out to be rather Zen. The whole story is based on crisis management, her adopted career, and the power of forgiveness, and yet, it doesn't quite hit the mark. And the lonely at the top drunken actor? A sad caricature. All a bit far-fetched, yet I couldn't put it down, because he writes a great sentence. Maybe I missed the point.
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