Leading the Cheers

by Justin Cartwright

Recently retired from the advertising business, Englishman Dan Silas returns to Michigan for his thirty-year high-school reunion, where he learns that his best friend believes that he is a reincarnated Shawnee Indian and that his high-school sweetheart claims he fathered one of her children

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction

246 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Justin Cartwright (born 1945) is a British novelist.

He was born in South Africa, where his father was the editor of the Rand Daily Mail newspaper, and was educated there, in the United States and at Trinity College, Oxford. Cartwright has worked in advertising and has directed documentaries, films and television commercials. He managed election broadcasts, first for the Liberal Party and then the SDP-Liberal Alliance during the 1979, 1983 and 1987 British general elections. For his work on election broadcasts, Cartwright was appointed an MBE.

Cartwright had a wife, Penny, and two sons.

Reviews

[Leoni Hofmeyr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant.
This reviewer says it well, better than I can:
At times Justin Cartwright's narrative seems filigreed with ideas and ironies; at other times it seems concerned, quite simply, with one man who learns that his "version of what goes on is certainly faulty."

Love the way Cartwright's mind works, love the way he puts it into words.
Always questioning versions of reality, always poking fun at modern "certainties", always funny, always unpeeling characters to get to their core, always contextualising people and what they do and say and think in the context of where they come from and where they are going to (old world versus new). Always with every word in place, to my sensibilities anyway, never too much, never too little. Ans words that resonate with meaning.

He lost one star because of the beginning. Dont think that was constructed well.

[Ilya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Typically Cartwrightian in style (the main character is in conversation with himself really much more than with the people around him), but atypical in subject matter: America, high school reunions, American Indian history.

[Poornima Vijayan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Justin Cartwright is a really good author (he gave us White Lightning which I absolutely loved!) and the book 'Leading the Cheers' reflects his really good style. But the book itself was merely ok. Middle aged men seem to be Cartwright's specialty and he captures the many thoughts of a successful person, now left without a steady job.

The book revolves around a class reunion and told from the perspective of Dan Silas a marketing guy, who left the US to relocate to the UK. He comes back to a host of people who seem to have never left the tiny town. There's an old girlfriend who he might or might not have impregnated, a murderer who he visits, his old friend who thinks he is Pale eagle, a reincarnated Indian.. there are several interesting characters and frankly if this was a short story stitched together, might have been a lot better.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it a lot but it's hard to get away from the fact that it was published 20 years ago and has not aged well, mostly because of the how the internet has transformed our ways of communicating. (Yes this was a charity shop find I wouldn't have read it otherwise). These days Dan Silas and his old school friends would all be in touch on facebook so large elements of the plot would be rendered redundant. How the world has changed as 1998 doesn't seem that long ago really. That said there are a couple of extremely salient and current themes in the book, regarding middle America and an insightful precursor the the #metoo movement.

[Simon Rosenbaum · Rating 2 out of 5]

This starts off in quite an odd way like it's an essay on the decline of America. Then it slightly improves as it turns into a more conventional novel. The characters are not uninteresting but the story isn't really told in enough of a compelling way. Some chapters work but a lot don't although as it comes to its conclusion there is more focus and it ends a lot better than it started.

[Sarah Gregory · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book but there were times when I did not understand the storyline and got completely lost in both time and place. Also I was not moved at all by the sufferings of the characters. However Leading the Cheers is an hugely intelligent , imaginative, often insightful, often funny read. I shall certainly go on reading Justin Cartwright.

[Jodie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy enjoyable read of a chap who returns for his high school reunion in America and sees his old school chums.

[Dave Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

http://electrichalibut.blogspot.co.uk...

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I somewhat generously gave this novel three stars because the author is undoubtedly talented and capable of passages of startling brilliance, however the plot becomes simultaneously more ponderous and preposterous as the novel draws on. The whole episode of the ´liberation´of the artifacts from the depository in London certainly stretched my credibility as did the narrator´s motives for such a foolhardy venture. Perhaps he was attempting to assuage his own guilt at having made a relative success of his life while the former schoolmates he had left behind were suffocating in the mundanity of life in a nondescript part of America.
The aspect of the native Indians could have been fascinating, and is a subject I would like to learn a lot more about, but here was used more as an adjunct to the characterisation of the disturbed Gary and a subplot rather than the guts of the work. The narrator is typically flawed and frustrating in his naivety, lied to and exploited by his so-called friends, most heinously by the manipulative Gloria, whose perfidy knows no bounds.
Nevertheless, I largely enjoyed the book and will give this particular author another opportunity to impress.

[Russell George · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve read a couple of Justin Cartwright books and enjoyed them, particularly ‘The Promise of Happiness’, despite it being recommended by Richard and Judy’s book club. The storyline to this book, about a British man returning to the US for a high school reunion, is both familiar and yet slightly implausible, given that his school sweetheart claims that her murdered daughter was also his, and his best mate has gone into some sort of periodic psychosis whereby he believes he is a native American.

And yet it sort of works. It’s very readable, partly because the book moves along at a good pace. And yet our narrator is always a bit distant, which makes the story feel slightly distant too. There’s a conscious lack of urgency, which Cartwright only just manages to rescue by his ability to write nice, fluid prose, but it never really stirs the soul.

[Redfox5 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book quiet a struggle to start and tho it wasn't awful, I found the book managed to make an intresting plot quiet dull. I only really warmed to two of the characters: Stephanie becuase I would bet money on that being me in a few years time which is very depressing and Gary becuase even tho he was crazy he seemed loveable

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a excellent book. I have recently discovered this writer and am trying to read all his books. I find him to have a strong hold on what makes us human. His writing stays in my head long after I have finished the page. quote from this book: The burden (of being human)is the belief that we are meant to be more than what we find.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still thinking about the book and the narrator's 'small migration,' -- the meaning of memory both individual and collective. The book jacket describes the book as witty and hilarious. Wonder if we read the same book?

[Mew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not his best - a good 'killing time' read...

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only vaguely remember this book - I found an old calendar with this written on one of the pages.

[Morven · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointed after The Promise of Happiness. I wouldn't recommend this book, it lost me by the end.

[Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some interesting insights on different UK / Euro - American perceptions.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book but a litte far-fetched

[Jenny Benn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cartwright is a fantastic writer. I love his prose and insightful commentary, however the story in this book didn't really grab me. I found it too unbelievable.

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5 Stars!)

Cartwright really does write beautifully at times. This is a clever, quirky and inventive book that takes a fairly original approach to the reunion plot. It raises some really interesting questions with regards to the reliability of memory and how so many people can remember the same places, events and people in completely different ways, leading to some worrying and thought provoking results.

This was an enticing story, with some lovely twists and turns along the way, bringing in grief, nostalgia, unfulfilment as well as murder and mental illness into the story. It left me wanting more and I am really looking forward to reading more of Cartwright’s novels in the near future.