Mistler's Exit: A Novel

by Louis Begley

A self-made New Yorker well into his middle age, Thomas Mistler has long been a lion of Madison Avenue's powerful advertising world. Now, poised to sell his company for a luxurious sum, Mistler receives alarming He has only months to live. But his reaction is not what one would expect. Rather than hysteria, Mistler experiences a sense of clarity and a feeling of being set free. From what, he is unsure. In a decision that breaks the mold of his superbly organized routine, Mistler conceals his illness from his family and seeks a moment of grace to be savored alone in the decadent splendor of Venice. There, he meets a young, lustful photographer and, later, a love from his youth. But his attempts to recapture passion only magnify the reconciliations he has yet to make--with the father to whom he sacrificed his own dreams, the son with whom he has never truly accepted, and the wife to whom he has given everything but respect.

A startling blend of grace and satire, Mistler's Exit is charged with unexpected moments of beauty and eroticism, pathos and humor. Like the city of Venice itself, it is a creation of timeless appeal.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Italy

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Louis Begley is an American novelist.

Begley was born Ludwik Begleiter in Stryi at the time part of Poland and now in Ukraine, as the only child of a physician. He is a survivor of the Holocaust due to the multiple purchases of Aryan papers by his mother and constant evasion of the Nazis. They survived by pretending to be Polish Catholic. The family left Poland in the fall of 1946 and settled in New York in March 1947. Begley studied English Literature at Harvard College (AB '54, summa cum laude), and published in the Harvard Advocate. Service in the United States Army followed. In 1956 Begley entered Harvard Law School and graduated in 1959 (LL.B. magna cum laude).

Upon graduation from Law School, Begley joined the New York firm of Debevoise & Plimpton as an associate; became a partner in January 1968; became of counsel in January 2004; and retired in January 2007. From 1993 to 1995, Begley was also president of PEN American Center. He remains a member of PEN's board of directors, as well as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

His wife of 30 years, Anka Muhlstein, was honoured by the French Academy for her work on La Salle, and received critical acclaim for her book A Taste for Freedom: The Life of Astolphe de Custine.

His first novel, Wartime Lies, was written in 1989. It won the PEN/Hemingway Award for a first work of fiction in 1991. The French version, Une éducation polonaise, won the Prix Médicis International in 1992. He has also won several German literature prizes, including the Jeanette Schocken Prize in 1995 and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Literature Prize in 2000.

His novel About Schmidt was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jack Nicholson.

Reviews

[William2]

Begley loves to write about the 60-plus-year-old man, usually of considerable means, getting it on with a 25-year-old girl. He does it in the first two Schmidt books and he does it here in Mistler's Exit. His other penchant is to chat in considerable detail about business deals, or legal cases, or real estate. His characters are big time materialists who probably vote Republican but who are nice enough so that you can't tell. They are used to dinner parties and servants and polo and the club. They enjoy their flings; they are men of the old school after all. And let us not forget cocktail hour, with it's irreplaceable martini. They have all material aspects of their life worked out to a fare thee well. Yet into this world of hyper-planning and monied perfection steps travail and trepidation. Humans can never be free of it, strive though they might. In the first two Schmidt books it appears in the form of a recently deceased wife, who was a paragon of family life, the social glue that held it together, and a daughter so foolish and unknowing in her life choices that one wonders if there wasn't some switch made among the bassinets at the hospital. Still reading.

[Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book because I had heard good things about this author, but I have to say that I don't understand the point of this book.

Here's the story : Mistler, a 60-something director of an advertising agency, is told that he has liver cancer and has about 6 months to live. He decides not to fight it. Instead of telling his wife or son, he takes off for Venice. What exactly he hopes to do there is not clear, but we can assume that he wanted to spend a few days in a favorite spot, before his condition became too ugly.

Waiting for him in his hotel suite is Lina, a young photographer he'd met once in NYC. Stalker-like, she had followed him to Venice, apparently with the hope of getting some photo assignments from his ad agency. Mistler and Lina start a short-lived fling that is remarkably devoid of romance, passsion or pleasure, and that has the reader wondering why Mistler even bothers. Inbetween some crude descriptions of sexual acts, the reader is then suddenly treated to high-falutin' discourses on the art and history of Venice. There are also some thoughts about Mistler's relationship with his wife (after he found she'd cheated on him with a co-founder of the agency, he bullied her mercilessly), his son (alienated), his father (idolized him) and various and sundry. There are also some highly technical phone calls to NYC that have to do with the fact that he is trying to sell his ad agency. On page 167 out of a 206 page book, he meets an old crush , so we have more sexual speculation. And somewhere towards the very end, it appears that the love of his life was actually his father's mistress. The last pages of the book are probably intended to be highly symbolic, in the sense that Mistler spends good money on a small boat that he will never use, with a reference to the obol and Chiron, the ferryman who ferried the dead souls to the underworld in ancient mythology.

I read the whole book because I figured that sooner or later this book would make sense to me. But it didn't. Was the alternation between crude sexual terms and references to high culture intended to underline how complex Mistler is? Is the purchase of expensive chandeliers for his old love intended to be a gesture of reconciliation? I didn't get it. There were lots of strange descriptions like "that sleepless whisper" (page 175). Do whispers every sleep? Do colorless green ideas sleep furiously?

The book also had the typographical peculiarity that there were no quotation marks or lines, so that the text went from description to person A speaking to person B speaking without any of the classical visual aids to help the reader follow what was going on. Again : why? An attempt to be different from your run-of-the-mill novel?

Finally, there is not a single sympathetic person in the book. Mistler is a cold, manipulative man. Lina is ready to sell her body for photo assignments. Mistler's wife is described as borderline unbalanced. His father's mistress seemed a lovely woman, but she pops up only now and then in short anecdotes.

Bottom line : a meandering book that managed very successfully to avoid any meaningful description of a man coming to terms with his mortality.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's not easy for me to give a low rating to something by an able and critically-respected novelist. I had no trouble reading the book, which was strong on Venice atmosphere (echoes of Mann. It is in the mold of Marquand and Auchincloss, both of whom I read with affection, yet leaves a bitter taste very unlike the work of the other two.

As you will know from other reviews, the book is about a successful New York ad-man in his early 60s, born to wealth. He has just been told he has cancer that has invaded the liver and has chosen not to try chemo. What he decides to do then is not a triumph of the human spirit.

There are some really moving pages in which he drafts a letter to his adult son, a grad student in California who is not alienated from him but with whom he would like a deeper relationship. The rest is kind of tawdry. I did not see any nobility in his end-of-life plans, only selfishness and despair.

[Gloria · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bit dry and unemotional for a man who has just received news of his imminent death, yet the emotions hover underneath his veneer as a wealthy, successful businessman. Good for those who like to read about the lives of the elite. Overall, well written.

[Morgen · Rating 3 out of 5]

when wealthy ad agency owner Thomas Mistler learns he has terminal cancer he decides to deal with it his way. On his week long visit to Venice he revisits his past and plans his future and how he'll meet it.
Makes me want to go to Venice!

[Carole · Rating 1 out of 5]

Minimal and missing punctuation is a factor in my low rating. I disliked Mistler. The plot was wandering. The sex was crude. I cannot get the time back from a reading a book that never met expectations.

[Phenomene · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual I enjoyed this book like others he has written, although I cannot really identify with the characters (similar to how I felt about Memories of a Marriage).

[Reggie Morrisey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I waited too long to comment on this read. The setting was interesting. I liked it enough to try to read About Schmidt. But both main characters and complaints were too similar.

[Joel Gallant · Rating 4 out of 5]

A successful and wealthy patrician WASP (are such people still written about these days?), having learned that he’s dying, travels alone to Venice to orchestrate a final trip, full of art, good food, fine wine, perhaps sex. In doing so, he becomes introspective, perhaps for the first time, though his plans don’t work out quite the way they were supposed to. The references to Mann’s “Death in Venice” are obvious, but they’re just references; this is no retelling or updating, and Mistler's lusts are focused on adult women rather than an adolescent boy. Begley’s writing is elegant, and while the main character is deeply flawed and not particularly likeable, I still found the story compelling. The ending didn’t quite hold up for me though, unlike Mann’s ending, which is dramatic and masterful.

[Patty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mistler's Exit is a short book, about a powerful New York adman who had just learned he has terminal cancer. It's beautifully written. Definitely the point of view of a rich powerful man, which is interesting to me because it's so other. Enjoyable.

[Rjchaussee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book mainly because it was set in Venice.
However, I found it rather dry although the idea of how Mistler dealt with a terminal diagnosis
was unusual.
His life didn't seem to have much meaning

[Celeste · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little dry, but interesting/easy read for anyone interesting in writing

[Tom]

PS3552E373M57. German author...Ad man in Venice....see About Schmidt, etc.

[Ryan Bien · Rating 2 out of 5]

Out of the four books I have read by him, I like this one the least. Of course, this is the one that won all the awards. Go figure.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely well-written but oddly dissatisfying. No real ending - it just stops.