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Union Atlantic
The eagerly anticipated debut novel from the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist You Are Not a Stranger Here: a deeply affecting portrait of the modern gilded age, the first decade of the twenty-first century.
At the heart of Union Atlantic lies a test of wills between a young banker, Doug Fanning, and a retired schoolteacher, Charlotte Graves, whose two dogs have begun to speak to her. When Doug builds an ostentatious mansion on land that Charlotte’s grandfather donated to the town of Finden, Massachusetts, she determines to oust him in court. As a senior manager of Union Atlantic bank, a major financial conglomerate, Doug is embroiled in the company’s struggle to remain afloat. It is Charlotte’s brother, Henry Graves, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, who must keep a watchful eye on Union Atlantic and the entire financial system. Drawn into Doug and Charlotte’s intensifying conflict is Nate Fuller, a troubled high-school senior who unwittingly stirs powerful emotions in each of them.
Irresistibly complex, imaginative, and witty, Union Atlantic is a singular work of fiction that is sure to be read and reread long after it causes a sensation this spring.
“Union Atlantic is a masterful portrait of our age.”—Malcolm Gladwell
At the heart of Union Atlantic lies a test of wills between a young banker, Doug Fanning, and a retired schoolteacher, Charlotte Graves, whose two dogs have begun to speak to her. When Doug builds an ostentatious mansion on land that Charlotte’s grandfather donated to the town of Finden, Massachusetts, she determines to oust him in court. As a senior manager of Union Atlantic bank, a major financial conglomerate, Doug is embroiled in the company’s struggle to remain afloat. It is Charlotte’s brother, Henry Graves, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, who must keep a watchful eye on Union Atlantic and the entire financial system. Drawn into Doug and Charlotte’s intensifying conflict is Nate Fuller, a troubled high-school senior who unwittingly stirs powerful emotions in each of them.
Irresistibly complex, imaginative, and witty, Union Atlantic is a singular work of fiction that is sure to be read and reread long after it causes a sensation this spring.
“Union Atlantic is a masterful portrait of our age.”—Malcolm Gladwell
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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May 28, 2025
IL PICCOLO GATSBY
Qui e a seguire dipinti di cui si parla nel romanzo. Jan Vermeer: Stradina di Delft (1657-1658 circa, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
Un piccolo Grande Romanzo Americano.
Ma, piccolo solo perché di mole contenuta.
Adam Haslett, del quale mi ero innamorato leggendo la raccolta di racconti con la quale aveva esordito, You Are Not A Stranger Here - Il principio del dolore, è qui al suo primo romanzo, al quale ne ha fatto seguire soltanto un altro (solo tre titoli pubblicati in quasi vent’anni!).
Ho tirato in ballo il totem del Grande Romanzo Americano perché l’affresco, che copre il periodo che va da poco prima della prima Guerra del Golfo fino all’invasione dell’Iraq (2003), rappresenta per me una sintesi non solo degli eventi storici di quel paese (che hanno in qualche modo coinvolto l’intero mondo), ma riesce anche a evidenziare il cambiamento della cultura e della vita a stelle-e-strisce.
Charles-François Daubigny: Il borgo di Optevoz (1852 circa, Metropolitan Museum, New York)
Questo Union Atlantic, che è il nome della banca per cui lavora uno dei protagonisti, il rampante quarantenne Doug, ex sottufficiale di marina addetto ai radar, ha richiesto a Haslett otto anni di lavoro che si vedono tutti, a cominciare dai meccanismi della finanza che qui vengono sviscerati e trasformati in letteratura.
Se non che quando la prima stesura era pronta, nel 2008, ci fu la grande crisi finanziaria, innescato dal fallimento della Lehman Brothers quella dalla quale non sembra che siamo ancora usciti, almeno qui in Italia, e Haslett impiegò altri due anni per aggiornare i suoi dati e perfezionare la narrazione.
Georges Seurat: Una domenica pomeriggio sull’isola della Grande-Jatte (1884 - 1886, Art Institute, Chicago)
La solitudine sembra imperare sia nella vita di Doug - che si fa costruire una villa sfarzosa di dimensioni impressionanti nella quale trascorre solo poche ore serali in ambienti senza arredo – che nella vita di Charlotte, l’anziana vicina, che parla coi cani (questi dialoghi sono stati per me la parte più debole del libro, anche se l’idea che li sostiene è più che notevole), ex insegnante di storia costretta a pensionamento anticipato – che in quella di Nate, adolescente che funge da collegamento tra vari personaggi, oltre che da detonatore – che in quella di Henry, fratello minore di Charlotte, alto dirigente della FED, per quanto sia sposato – che in quella dello stesso proprietario della Union Atlantic, anche lui solo nonostante sposato, ma con moglie tendente all’alcol.
E in fondo anche il gruppetto di giovani, tra l’adolescenza e la maggiore età, concentrati e tutti dediti a ogni genere di droga e di viaggio lisergico, tra i quali c’è lo stesso Nate, e il figlio del proprietario della banca, non sembrano molto più sociali o socievoli o accompagnati o circondati da amicizia affetto e calore umano.
Albert Bierstadt: Yosemite Valley (1864, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Ma quello che spinge ancora più in alto il romanzo è il confronto-scontro tra i valori sui quali gli Stati Uniti d’America sono stati unificati e costruiti e quelli nuovi, l’emergente (forse, e comunque all’epoca: ora è imperante) cultura dell’impunità. Che spinge a reinterpretare la Legge a proprio uso e consumo e interesse privato. La rapacità del capitalismo, la sua ipocrisia (cosa c’è di più ipocrita del concetto di mercato? Il mercato esiste finché serve: nel momento del bisogno lo Stato aiuta sempre un grosso banchiere che rischia di affondare, colpendo in basso mai in alto), i principi di onestà e abnegazione che sono stati soppiantati da un vuoto riempito appunto dalla voracità dei nuovi potenti, il cambiamento della morale, modellata su nuove esigenze e obiettivi che molto hanno in comune con la disonestà.
Senza nostalgia, mi pare, e senza eccesso di idealismo.
E, secondo me, non a torto per questo romanzo si è parlato di F.S. Fitzgerald. Certo, all’inizio del terzo millennio, anche i predatori, i tycoon, hanno perso ogni traccia di romanticismo.
Haslet riesce a raccontare il nostro tempo in modo a suo modo classico.
Qui e a seguire dipinti di cui si parla nel romanzo. Jan Vermeer: Stradina di Delft (1657-1658 circa, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
Un piccolo Grande Romanzo Americano.
Ma, piccolo solo perché di mole contenuta.
Adam Haslett, del quale mi ero innamorato leggendo la raccolta di racconti con la quale aveva esordito, You Are Not A Stranger Here - Il principio del dolore, è qui al suo primo romanzo, al quale ne ha fatto seguire soltanto un altro (solo tre titoli pubblicati in quasi vent’anni!).
Ho tirato in ballo il totem del Grande Romanzo Americano perché l’affresco, che copre il periodo che va da poco prima della prima Guerra del Golfo fino all’invasione dell’Iraq (2003), rappresenta per me una sintesi non solo degli eventi storici di quel paese (che hanno in qualche modo coinvolto l’intero mondo), ma riesce anche a evidenziare il cambiamento della cultura e della vita a stelle-e-strisce.
Charles-François Daubigny: Il borgo di Optevoz (1852 circa, Metropolitan Museum, New York)
Questo Union Atlantic, che è il nome della banca per cui lavora uno dei protagonisti, il rampante quarantenne Doug, ex sottufficiale di marina addetto ai radar, ha richiesto a Haslett otto anni di lavoro che si vedono tutti, a cominciare dai meccanismi della finanza che qui vengono sviscerati e trasformati in letteratura.
Se non che quando la prima stesura era pronta, nel 2008, ci fu la grande crisi finanziaria, innescato dal fallimento della Lehman Brothers quella dalla quale non sembra che siamo ancora usciti, almeno qui in Italia, e Haslett impiegò altri due anni per aggiornare i suoi dati e perfezionare la narrazione.
Georges Seurat: Una domenica pomeriggio sull’isola della Grande-Jatte (1884 - 1886, Art Institute, Chicago)
La solitudine sembra imperare sia nella vita di Doug - che si fa costruire una villa sfarzosa di dimensioni impressionanti nella quale trascorre solo poche ore serali in ambienti senza arredo – che nella vita di Charlotte, l’anziana vicina, che parla coi cani (questi dialoghi sono stati per me la parte più debole del libro, anche se l’idea che li sostiene è più che notevole), ex insegnante di storia costretta a pensionamento anticipato – che in quella di Nate, adolescente che funge da collegamento tra vari personaggi, oltre che da detonatore – che in quella di Henry, fratello minore di Charlotte, alto dirigente della FED, per quanto sia sposato – che in quella dello stesso proprietario della Union Atlantic, anche lui solo nonostante sposato, ma con moglie tendente all’alcol.
E in fondo anche il gruppetto di giovani, tra l’adolescenza e la maggiore età, concentrati e tutti dediti a ogni genere di droga e di viaggio lisergico, tra i quali c’è lo stesso Nate, e il figlio del proprietario della banca, non sembrano molto più sociali o socievoli o accompagnati o circondati da amicizia affetto e calore umano.
Albert Bierstadt: Yosemite Valley (1864, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Ma quello che spinge ancora più in alto il romanzo è il confronto-scontro tra i valori sui quali gli Stati Uniti d’America sono stati unificati e costruiti e quelli nuovi, l’emergente (forse, e comunque all’epoca: ora è imperante) cultura dell’impunità. Che spinge a reinterpretare la Legge a proprio uso e consumo e interesse privato. La rapacità del capitalismo, la sua ipocrisia (cosa c’è di più ipocrita del concetto di mercato? Il mercato esiste finché serve: nel momento del bisogno lo Stato aiuta sempre un grosso banchiere che rischia di affondare, colpendo in basso mai in alto), i principi di onestà e abnegazione che sono stati soppiantati da un vuoto riempito appunto dalla voracità dei nuovi potenti, il cambiamento della morale, modellata su nuove esigenze e obiettivi che molto hanno in comune con la disonestà.
Senza nostalgia, mi pare, e senza eccesso di idealismo.
E, secondo me, non a torto per questo romanzo si è parlato di F.S. Fitzgerald. Certo, all’inizio del terzo millennio, anche i predatori, i tycoon, hanno perso ogni traccia di romanticismo.
Haslet riesce a raccontare il nostro tempo in modo a suo modo classico.
September 7, 2015
Union Atlantic :
So good even negative reviews are basically recommendations.
One star reviews mention unsympathetic characters, complex prose, ponderous chapters, moral ambiguity. They call it a bad book, I call it
Adam Hasslett is so scary good at words he must've studied writing at Hogwarts.
And he writes fucked-up, pathetic and convoluted characters with staggering empathy.
Like Charlotte, an elderly feminist scholar who loathes unfettered capitalism with a passion rivaled by her strange and elusive love for her brother, the president of New York Fed. She is the conscience of American history turned into a force of nature, proud and armed to teeth against complacency.
(This interview with the author, where he talks about Charlotte and the other characters, made me fall in love)
In this book Haslett creates people all over the moral and political heatmap and delivers them into this world with an eloquence that makes you marvel at things that you might have thought before, but perhaps never saw them phrased in such a keen way:
All those characters, whose only connection at first is accidental in a comic twist that tragedies are made of, get tangled up in a power struggle before the dawn of the financial crisis that imploded in 2008.
They come saddled with luggage of their pasts, anxiety and self-importance. Everyone wants something from someone, even if just a validation of their own worthlessness. Or to find meaning in destruction of another.
I seem to love stories about loneliness. Or maybe I've been falling victim to a conspiracy that puts stories like that on my path relentlessly.
But that's only a part of what I found in Union Atlantic and so I'm putting my morbid musings in a spoiler because I don't want to make you all sad; it's not spoilery for the book in case you're curious:
Haslett writes about people who let their loneliness shape them and seek to impart the products of their isolation on the world in different ways. He writes it without a clear agenda, they're not characters for you to judge and learn from. They're too messed up to empathize with, but proud, magnificent and courageous enough to admire.
So good even negative reviews are basically recommendations.
One star reviews mention unsympathetic characters, complex prose, ponderous chapters, moral ambiguity. They call it a bad book, I call it
Adam Hasslett is so scary good at words he must've studied writing at Hogwarts.
And he writes fucked-up, pathetic and convoluted characters with staggering empathy.
Like Charlotte, an elderly feminist scholar who loathes unfettered capitalism with a passion rivaled by her strange and elusive love for her brother, the president of New York Fed. She is the conscience of American history turned into a force of nature, proud and armed to teeth against complacency.
(This interview with the author, where he talks about Charlotte and the other characters, made me fall in love)
In this book Haslett creates people all over the moral and political heatmap and delivers them into this world with an eloquence that makes you marvel at things that you might have thought before, but perhaps never saw them phrased in such a keen way:
Now and again Sabrina employed this sort of presumption, a compensatory fantasy, he imagined, for the inherent powerlessness of a person with an advanced degree in short fiction. It was as though she’d bargained on receiving a certain cultural cachet that had yet to materialize and in the meantime needed a bridge loan of prestige paid out in the quasi-glamour of international travel.
All those characters, whose only connection at first is accidental in a comic twist that tragedies are made of, get tangled up in a power struggle before the dawn of the financial crisis that imploded in 2008.
They come saddled with luggage of their pasts, anxiety and self-importance. Everyone wants something from someone, even if just a validation of their own worthlessness. Or to find meaning in destruction of another.
I seem to love stories about loneliness. Or maybe I've been falling victim to a conspiracy that puts stories like that on my path relentlessly.
But that's only a part of what I found in Union Atlantic and so I'm putting my morbid musings in a spoiler because I don't want to make you all sad; it's not spoilery for the book in case you're curious:
Haslett writes about people who let their loneliness shape them and seek to impart the products of their isolation on the world in different ways. He writes it without a clear agenda, they're not characters for you to judge and learn from. They're too messed up to empathize with, but proud, magnificent and courageous enough to admire.
April 25, 2022
Adam Haslett's Imagine Me Gone is one of my favourite novels of recent years, a tender and beautifully told account of mental illness. I was eager to read more of his work and when I saw his first book in a charity shop the other day, I decided to give it a shot.
The story opens in the Middle East, 1988. Doug Fanning, a young man not long out of high school, is aboard a US battleship when he becomes involved in a military operation that goes disastrously wrong. The narrative then jumps forwards several years. Doug is now a very successful executive in an investment bank based out of Boston. He decides to reward himself by building a mansion in Finden, the commuter town where his mother used to clean the houses of wealthy families. What he hasn't bargained for is the stubborn intentions of his new neighbour, Charlotte Graves. She believes her family has a claim to the land that his decadent palace now stands on, and she's willing to go to court to prove it. Meanwhile, Nate, a young history student that she tutors, acts upon his crush for the handsome Doug, and soon finds himself a pawn in their intricate game of legal manoeuvres.
The book is garlanded with praise from the likes of Kate Atkinson and Jonathan Franzen. There was a bit too much financial talk in it for my liking - I don't need to know all the ins and outs of Wall Street trading, thank you very much. I'm more interested in the human aspect of the story. Doug remains pretty inscrutable - he doesn't seem to like many people, including himself. Charlotte's demise though, I found quite moving - a hyperintelligent, curious individual who lost the only person she truly cared about, and never really recovered from it. I think Haslett tries to do too many things here - it's a state of the nation novel, addressing capitalism, gender politics, race and environmental concerns among its multiple themes. But there are flashes of his talent, and signs that he would go on to greater things after this solid debut.
The story opens in the Middle East, 1988. Doug Fanning, a young man not long out of high school, is aboard a US battleship when he becomes involved in a military operation that goes disastrously wrong. The narrative then jumps forwards several years. Doug is now a very successful executive in an investment bank based out of Boston. He decides to reward himself by building a mansion in Finden, the commuter town where his mother used to clean the houses of wealthy families. What he hasn't bargained for is the stubborn intentions of his new neighbour, Charlotte Graves. She believes her family has a claim to the land that his decadent palace now stands on, and she's willing to go to court to prove it. Meanwhile, Nate, a young history student that she tutors, acts upon his crush for the handsome Doug, and soon finds himself a pawn in their intricate game of legal manoeuvres.
The book is garlanded with praise from the likes of Kate Atkinson and Jonathan Franzen. There was a bit too much financial talk in it for my liking - I don't need to know all the ins and outs of Wall Street trading, thank you very much. I'm more interested in the human aspect of the story. Doug remains pretty inscrutable - he doesn't seem to like many people, including himself. Charlotte's demise though, I found quite moving - a hyperintelligent, curious individual who lost the only person she truly cared about, and never really recovered from it. I think Haslett tries to do too many things here - it's a state of the nation novel, addressing capitalism, gender politics, race and environmental concerns among its multiple themes. But there are flashes of his talent, and signs that he would go on to greater things after this solid debut.
December 22, 2020
I had high expectations for this novel - it got rave reviews from applaudable authors, however, for me it seemed to be missing - je ne sais quoi? The story line, the characters lacked the care factor - something that is integrally vital for a novel to be totally engrossing, enjoyable and ultimately unforgettable.
It touches on some pertinent contemporary issues - including gender, unbridled affluence, environmental degredation and the quirks of small town living.
The writing was good, very good in fact, but this was not enough to get it across the literary line.
It touches on some pertinent contemporary issues - including gender, unbridled affluence, environmental degredation and the quirks of small town living.
The writing was good, very good in fact, but this was not enough to get it across the literary line.
August 20, 2015
In an interview Adam Haslett said: “My interest is always to get as deeply as I can into the minds and spirits of the characters and let the readers empathize or judge as they will”. Well he quite succeeded in doing this in my opinion.
With Union Atlantic he tells the story of group of people whose lives intersected for a little period of time. Haslett gives all dues to each character and easily drew me in making me feel that particular character. The loneliness, the confusion, the passion that was Charlotte, the loss, the pain, the escape, the want of Nate, the sleekness, the barrenness of Doug etc. He knows how to write people.
As I read this during the time of the Greek bailout the story struck more chords than just what happened in the past. Because money-meddling is not just a thing of the past. I don’t think that we found the perfect solution yet. Our world is controlled by ‘might is right’, not by ‘fair and just’. Maybe like Henry, I too have to be pragmatic enough to bend my wish for the ‘better’, for the greater good, even if this galls. Or no, should I be like Charlotte? A stalwart Don Quixote fighting at windmills. But without the Charlottes where would we be? Much more worse than we are. We need them, at least to brake a little, the headlong rush of greed. Because our world is a good breeding ground for the sleek sharks that do not get wet like Doug. Shortsighted yes because they need to drink that water to live. But then maybe my definition of ‘live’ is not the same as theirs.
An enjoyable group read - where we talked this to death.
April 6, 2025
This is a fictional account that takes the reader behind the scenes of intertwined private lives in the midst’s of a banking crisis in 2008 where “too big to fail” is a reoccurring consideration. The private lives followed in this book can be taken as symbols of the cultural forces competing for America’s soul in the aftermath of 9/11. The story that unfolds is filled with ethical and emotional complexities.
I found most of the characters developed by this novel to be not likeable. Consequently the book was a bit of a downer for me. The president of the New York Federal Reserve is a somewhat sympathetic character. The following quote from the book gives some of his inner thoughts as he ponders what to do with a large bank that has become the victim of fraudulent speculation in the international financial markets.
The following quote is an answer from Henry's colleague to the question, "So what would letting them go look like?”
Also, I don't like novels that include graphic sexual encounters. In this book the encounters are homosexual in nature. It could be argued that in this book the sex scenes are symbolic of other inappropriate business relationships that are part of the plot. I can see that the author has written a well structured plot with several layers of meaning. Nevertheless, I found little to enjoy in this book.
Below is a copy of the review of this book from PageADay's Book Lover's Calendar for April 30, 2012:
BANK ON IT
Adam Haslett says he completed his sprawling yet elegant first novel—the tale of a banking titan pitted against a seemingly powerless retired history teacher—on the day Lehmann Brothers collapsed. So he emerges as remarkably prescient. Aside from the novelty factor, though, there’s also the quality of his book. As The Wall Street Journal says, “Decades from now, this fine novel will help readers understand the period we’ve just been through.”
UNION ATLANTIC, by Adam Haslett (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2010)
I found most of the characters developed by this novel to be not likeable. Consequently the book was a bit of a downer for me. The president of the New York Federal Reserve is a somewhat sympathetic character. The following quote from the book gives some of his inner thoughts as he ponders what to do with a large bank that has become the victim of fraudulent speculation in the international financial markets.
"Truth lay in the aggregate numbers, not in the images of citizens the media alighted upon for a minute or two and then quickly left behind. Currency devaluations created more misery than any corporate criminal ever would. What the populist critics rarely bothered to countenance was the shape of things in the wake of real, systemic collapse."The last time he bailed out a big bank the chairman of the Fed had publicly distanced himself suggesting the market ought to have been left to settle the matter.
The following quote is an answer from Henry's colleague to the question, "So what would letting them go look like?”
“A bloodbath. They’ve got business in a hundred countries. Counterparties up and down the food chain. They’re ten percent of the municipal bond market. They’ve got more credit cards than Chase. And they’re overweighted in mortgage securities. They’re the definition of systemic risk. And we’re barely out of a recession. It’d be mal-practice to let them fail. You know it as well as I do.”From the above quotes that I've lifted from the book you might get the impression that the book spends a lot of time addressing the moral dilemmas faced in deciding what to do with a failed financial institution. Unfortunately, the book spends most of its time following the private life conflicts and problems of the fictional characters, and the banking crisis is mostly background activity. I was hoping for more emphasis on the inner workings of banking regulators.
Also, I don't like novels that include graphic sexual encounters. In this book the encounters are homosexual in nature. It could be argued that in this book the sex scenes are symbolic of other inappropriate business relationships that are part of the plot. I can see that the author has written a well structured plot with several layers of meaning. Nevertheless, I found little to enjoy in this book.
Below is a copy of the review of this book from PageADay's Book Lover's Calendar for April 30, 2012:
BANK ON IT
Adam Haslett says he completed his sprawling yet elegant first novel—the tale of a banking titan pitted against a seemingly powerless retired history teacher—on the day Lehmann Brothers collapsed. So he emerges as remarkably prescient. Aside from the novelty factor, though, there’s also the quality of his book. As The Wall Street Journal says, “Decades from now, this fine novel will help readers understand the period we’ve just been through.”
UNION ATLANTIC, by Adam Haslett (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2010)
Read
June 14, 2011I love books that put me in the morally compromised position of rooting for a villain. In Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country, for example, we watch Undine Spragg, a creature of pure ambition and greed, as she goes through husband after husband in her search for wealth and status. She leaves in her wake a neglected son and a suicide. More than her downfall, though, I wanted to see her prevail. This phenomenon is old news, I suppose, considering fiendish scene-stealers from Milton's Satan to Alexis Carrington. Worthy of inclusion on this list is Doug Fanning, the spider at the center of Haslett's fantastic web of a book, Union Atlantic.
Doug is not only a banker, but a bad banker, one of the greedy speculators who got us into this mess we're in. But Haslett cannot make a character without making him wholly human. We are granted an understanding of Doug which translates into a better understanding of our age. And when Doug comes into conflict with Charlotte Graves, an elderly history teacher who was forced into retirement for her unflinching honesty and perspicacity, the results are wrenching. Charlotte is the my favorite character in recent memory; her monologues as she tutors teenager Nate are hilarious, moving, and eye-opening. And Nate is a perfectly wrought boy at sea. I yearned to protect him both from his exploiters and his own bad decisions.
Haslett has combined Whartonesque wit and authority with the heart and wide sympathies that made his collection You Are Not a Stranger Here so memorable. As a result, Union Atlantic achieves something many of our best and most enjoyable works of art fall short of: importance.
Doug is not only a banker, but a bad banker, one of the greedy speculators who got us into this mess we're in. But Haslett cannot make a character without making him wholly human. We are granted an understanding of Doug which translates into a better understanding of our age. And when Doug comes into conflict with Charlotte Graves, an elderly history teacher who was forced into retirement for her unflinching honesty and perspicacity, the results are wrenching. Charlotte is the my favorite character in recent memory; her monologues as she tutors teenager Nate are hilarious, moving, and eye-opening. And Nate is a perfectly wrought boy at sea. I yearned to protect him both from his exploiters and his own bad decisions.
Haslett has combined Whartonesque wit and authority with the heart and wide sympathies that made his collection You Are Not a Stranger Here so memorable. As a result, Union Atlantic achieves something many of our best and most enjoyable works of art fall short of: importance.
September 10, 2010
I was skeptical. Yes, I had really, really loved his collection of short stories, You Are Not a Stranger Here. But in his NPR interview I heard the description of this novel and it had to do with banking. And all of those things that made our economy nearly collapse. Not that these things aren't important, but I generally don't understand them: swaps and trades and mortgage-backed securities and markets and exchanges.
Turns out that it is about that, but about a lot more than that as well. Like all novels that I love, Union Atlantic is really about people. And the characters are wonderful. One of them, Doug Fanning, is indeed an irresponsible banker. And another, Henry Graves, is the chief of the New York Federal Reserve. But there is also Charlotte, Henry's sister and Doug's neighbor: old school WASP, retired history teacher, curmudgeon, and crank, who you end up rooting for. And Nate, her tutee, whose father has recently committed suicide. All of these people are all bound up together in ways that I would have thought implausible had you told me (were I to tell you) how it happens, but in Haslett's hands it really works.
This is a big and sweeping novel about money and sex and history and money again, and it's clearly trying to be big and sweeping. To be honest, I didn't care all that much about the sweep; the characters were enough for me. And speaking of: sit tight till Part II when you meet Evelyn Jones. I was moved. I still am, just thinking about her.
Did some parts irritate me just a little bit? Yes, they did, the talking dogs particularly (you'll see). And if I could give it 4.5 stars, I would, but I'm still going to go with 5 instead of 4.
Turns out that it is about that, but about a lot more than that as well. Like all novels that I love, Union Atlantic is really about people. And the characters are wonderful. One of them, Doug Fanning, is indeed an irresponsible banker. And another, Henry Graves, is the chief of the New York Federal Reserve. But there is also Charlotte, Henry's sister and Doug's neighbor: old school WASP, retired history teacher, curmudgeon, and crank, who you end up rooting for. And Nate, her tutee, whose father has recently committed suicide. All of these people are all bound up together in ways that I would have thought implausible had you told me (were I to tell you) how it happens, but in Haslett's hands it really works.
This is a big and sweeping novel about money and sex and history and money again, and it's clearly trying to be big and sweeping. To be honest, I didn't care all that much about the sweep; the characters were enough for me. And speaking of: sit tight till Part II when you meet Evelyn Jones. I was moved. I still am, just thinking about her.
Did some parts irritate me just a little bit? Yes, they did, the talking dogs particularly (you'll see). And if I could give it 4.5 stars, I would, but I'm still going to go with 5 instead of 4.
December 4, 2023
Smart and strongly written, Haslett uses the 20/20 vision of hindsight to critique the financial system of the early 21st century — the booming "naughts" up to 2008 that were essentially a con game, or pyramid scheme.
The relationship between a 30 something ex-military executive and a teenage boy is less than convincing. And I must say for such a stellar book the ending was about the flattest thing ever. Have actual endings become unfashionable in literary fiction?
The relationship between a 30 something ex-military executive and a teenage boy is less than convincing. And I must say for such a stellar book the ending was about the flattest thing ever. Have actual endings become unfashionable in literary fiction?
February 8, 2019
Uma surpresa gratificante, pese algum desequilíbrio ( ligeiro) no terço final da obra,que não belisca minimamente a clareza da voz,o conforto da narrativa ou a pertinência e actualidade da estória. Uma pérola que se consegue, actualmente,por um punhado de euros em qualquer livraria online. Coloca Adam Haslett,destacado,na lista dos autores a explorar. Uma proeza.
December 19, 2014
How interesting that this has an average rating of only 3.34. For me, it's one of the strongest novels of the 21st century I've read so far. (Granted, I don't read a lot of current literary fiction.)
It combines the pacing of a thriller, the social acuity of Tom Wolfe, and the phrase-crafting of Jonathan Franzen. I'd rank it above Privileges by Jonathan Dee, a somewhat similar novel. Haslett writes with equal facility about leveraged stock trades and margin calls and the mechanics of gay sex, which explains why the novel was both a Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Nominee and got a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.
Sometimes good writing is deceptively simple: "He said nothing for another moment or two, time enough, he figured, for the man to begin wondering about his own liability once the shareholder litigation began." A fairly ordinary sentence, yet think about how much a writer has to know both about finance and human behavior to create it. And: "This was the kind of Business Roundtable chump who spent his lunchtime decrying government intrusion and now found himself on a cell phone in the middle of the night pleading with the government to save him."
Or this Zeitgeisty sentence: "Now and again Sabrina employed this sort of presumption, a compensatory fantasy, he imagined, for the inherent powerlessness of a person with an advanced degree in short fiction." Ouch.
And: "Like a luxury car with poor turning radius, it took some effort for her to steer back through the door, which Doug closed behind her."
There are a few false notes: Charlotte serves Nate a tray of tea and "biscuits," as if we're in some country other than America. And a huge Fourth of July party thrown by a megabank CEO and his wife descends into farce, as the flock of sheep he owns in order to get a farming tax deduction are accidentally let loose and begin to nervously shit on the partygoers' feet, and fireworks explode prematurely, setting the lawn on fire. We visit Charlotte's youthful live-in love Eric, in flashbacks; Eric is a heroin addict who in Charlotte's (and Haslett's?) eyes seems near Christlike. We are also subjected to too much of high schooler Nate's friends and their drug binges; I always find myself hoping that a book aimed at adults, featuring adult characters, will remain that way, and always cringe when the teens and their bongs emerge.
October 27, 2014
Escrito nas vésperas da grande crise financeira do subprime, dos créditos de risco e da bolha especulativa e imobiliária, Union Atlantic é um livro sobre a economia mundial, mas também sobre pessoas, sobre os medos e as ambições que inexoravelmente vão regendo as vidas de cada um.
Iniciei a leitura deste livro com receio de não ter conhecimentos suficientes para compreender alguns termos técnicos que se adivinhavam: swaps, subprime, créditos de risco, etc. No entanto, o autor só recorre a uma linguagem mais técnica quando é estritamente necessário e quando quer conferir autenticidade às suas descrições ou aos diálogos entre as personagens que estão diretamente ligadas ao mundo da banca e da alta finança.
A crítica aplaudiu a obra de Haslett precisamente pela contemporaneidade do tema escolhido: a crise económica que assentou na concessão de empréstimos de alto risco; a forma como a falta de regulação dos mercados (especialmente do Norte-Americano) levou à insolvência de várias instituições bancárias (que também estendiam a sua ação ao ramo dos seguros e da imobiliária); e a quebra de confiança geral no sistema financeiro após a crescente perceção de que a falta de liquidez no sistema não era uma possibilidade, mas sim uma realidade.
No meio deste furacão financeiro, entrecruzam-se as personagens de Union Atlantic: Doug Fanning, um jovem e ambicioso banqueiro, que fez fortuna a dirigir as operações financeiras de alto risco no "pequeno" império que é a instituição que dá nome ao livro; e Charlotte Graves, uma professora de História compulsivamente reformada, cujos esforços para recuperar a herança de família a colocam em confronto direto com Doug, numa cruzada jurídica com reviravoltas muito significativas.
Ainda assim, o antagonismo entre Doug e Charlotte é mitigado pelo que há de comum entre estas personagens que estão inexoravelmente unidas pelo caos em que se encontram as suas vidas despedaçadas, e a própria espiral de descontrolo que os envolve acaba por ter paralelo no próprio desgoverno em que se encontra o sistema financeiro.
O conflito entre Doug Fanning e Charlotte Graves é, na realidade, uma parábola, que ilustra a forma como a intromissão generalizada do dinheiro, do desperdício e da ostentação (como é referido pelo próprio autor) colidem inevitavelmente com os valores da justiça, da lealdade e da transparência.
Ainda assim, o antagonismo entre Doug e Charlotte é mitigado pelo que há de comum entre estas personagens que estão inexoravelmente unidas pelo caos em que se encontram as suas vidas despedaçadas, e a própria espiral de descontrolo que os envolve acaba por ter paralelo no próprio desgoverno em que se encontra o sistema financeiro.
O autor não optou por um fim moralista ou redentor. Acaba por não ser feita justiça no sentido literal do termo, pois não há condenações efetivas para os que perpetraram os crimes em causa, e o sistema mantém-se inalterado - aqui e ali somos alertados para as complexas relações que se forjam entre o sistema político e financeiro dos EUA, sendo evidente que o Capitólio e Wall Street funcionam em estreita cooperação.
Ainda assim, o desfecho é circular e o leitor fica com a sensação de que não ficam pontas soltas por atar: Doug pacifica-se com o passado e Charlotte acaba por conseguir exorcizar todos os seus demónios, mesmo que o seu destino acabe por ser o mais trágico de todos.
Iniciei a leitura deste livro com receio de não ter conhecimentos suficientes para compreender alguns termos técnicos que se adivinhavam: swaps, subprime, créditos de risco, etc. No entanto, o autor só recorre a uma linguagem mais técnica quando é estritamente necessário e quando quer conferir autenticidade às suas descrições ou aos diálogos entre as personagens que estão diretamente ligadas ao mundo da banca e da alta finança.
A crítica aplaudiu a obra de Haslett precisamente pela contemporaneidade do tema escolhido: a crise económica que assentou na concessão de empréstimos de alto risco; a forma como a falta de regulação dos mercados (especialmente do Norte-Americano) levou à insolvência de várias instituições bancárias (que também estendiam a sua ação ao ramo dos seguros e da imobiliária); e a quebra de confiança geral no sistema financeiro após a crescente perceção de que a falta de liquidez no sistema não era uma possibilidade, mas sim uma realidade.
No meio deste furacão financeiro, entrecruzam-se as personagens de Union Atlantic: Doug Fanning, um jovem e ambicioso banqueiro, que fez fortuna a dirigir as operações financeiras de alto risco no "pequeno" império que é a instituição que dá nome ao livro; e Charlotte Graves, uma professora de História compulsivamente reformada, cujos esforços para recuperar a herança de família a colocam em confronto direto com Doug, numa cruzada jurídica com reviravoltas muito significativas.
Ainda assim, o antagonismo entre Doug e Charlotte é mitigado pelo que há de comum entre estas personagens que estão inexoravelmente unidas pelo caos em que se encontram as suas vidas despedaçadas, e a própria espiral de descontrolo que os envolve acaba por ter paralelo no próprio desgoverno em que se encontra o sistema financeiro.
O conflito entre Doug Fanning e Charlotte Graves é, na realidade, uma parábola, que ilustra a forma como a intromissão generalizada do dinheiro, do desperdício e da ostentação (como é referido pelo próprio autor) colidem inevitavelmente com os valores da justiça, da lealdade e da transparência.
Ainda assim, o antagonismo entre Doug e Charlotte é mitigado pelo que há de comum entre estas personagens que estão inexoravelmente unidas pelo caos em que se encontram as suas vidas despedaçadas, e a própria espiral de descontrolo que os envolve acaba por ter paralelo no próprio desgoverno em que se encontra o sistema financeiro.
O autor não optou por um fim moralista ou redentor. Acaba por não ser feita justiça no sentido literal do termo, pois não há condenações efetivas para os que perpetraram os crimes em causa, e o sistema mantém-se inalterado - aqui e ali somos alertados para as complexas relações que se forjam entre o sistema político e financeiro dos EUA, sendo evidente que o Capitólio e Wall Street funcionam em estreita cooperação.
Ainda assim, o desfecho é circular e o leitor fica com a sensação de que não ficam pontas soltas por atar: Doug pacifica-se com o passado e Charlotte acaba por conseguir exorcizar todos os seus demónios, mesmo que o seu destino acabe por ser o mais trágico de todos.
November 21, 2015
4,5 stars.
Basically what Apeiron said in her beautiful review.
There were a lot of scenes, small and bigger, that were marvelous. This author has a rare, keen eye for interpersonal dynamics and at some point I felt driven to google his age. There is something really mature in the way he brings characters to life - a compassionate yet detached perspective that is highly perceptive and unique.
Just one example, to give you a taste (I'll reuse this as it is the most powerful one without any character-backstory)
"Now and again Sabrina employed this sort of presumption, a compensatory fantasy, he imagined, for the inherent powerlessness of a person with an advanced degree in short fiction. It was as though she’d bargained on receiving a certain cultural cachet that had yet to materialize and in the meantime needed a bridge loan of prestige paid out in the quasi-glamour of international travel. Her parents were doctors who’d covered everything through graduate school but had drawn the line at outright patronage."
Dead-on, unflinching, insightful characterizations - it's like Sabrina, all disappointed entitlement and naive yearning and sullen attitude, is walking off the page into my livingroom.
And Sabrina is only a very minor side-character - just imagine what he is able to do with focusing this kind of observational eye combined with a beautiful mastery of language on a main character.
That's what really made this book for me.
That said, I feel the weakest part, both in regards to the psychological deftness and storyline, is actually
But these are minor quibbles, because in the end every single character's development managed to stir me up deeply in a strangely quiet, calm way that lingered afterwards. Recommended.
Basically what Apeiron said in her beautiful review.
There were a lot of scenes, small and bigger, that were marvelous. This author has a rare, keen eye for interpersonal dynamics and at some point I felt driven to google his age. There is something really mature in the way he brings characters to life - a compassionate yet detached perspective that is highly perceptive and unique.
Just one example, to give you a taste (I'll reuse this as it is the most powerful one without any character-backstory)
"Now and again Sabrina employed this sort of presumption, a compensatory fantasy, he imagined, for the inherent powerlessness of a person with an advanced degree in short fiction. It was as though she’d bargained on receiving a certain cultural cachet that had yet to materialize and in the meantime needed a bridge loan of prestige paid out in the quasi-glamour of international travel. Her parents were doctors who’d covered everything through graduate school but had drawn the line at outright patronage."
Dead-on, unflinching, insightful characterizations - it's like Sabrina, all disappointed entitlement and naive yearning and sullen attitude, is walking off the page into my livingroom.
And Sabrina is only a very minor side-character - just imagine what he is able to do with focusing this kind of observational eye combined with a beautiful mastery of language on a main character.
That's what really made this book for me.
That said, I feel the weakest part, both in regards to the psychological deftness and storyline, is actually
But these are minor quibbles, because in the end every single character's development managed to stir me up deeply in a strangely quiet, calm way that lingered afterwards. Recommended.
September 27, 2016
More like a 2.5 for me. Haslett's latest book, the NBA nominated Imagine Me Gone, is probably my favorite novel of the past year, and I also thoroughly enjoyed his Pulitzer nominated book of short stories. So this came as somewhat of a major disappointment for me. I just couldn't get into the minutiae of the banking business that the convoluted plot revolves around ; it played out like an even more boring version of The Big Short, nor was I interested in the scenes set on a war ship or in the Kuwait desert. Haslett's strong suit is his characters, and even here I thought he was deficient. The prose is often just as fine as in his other work, but to little lasting effect, since I found the characters largely dull and uninteresting. And what was with the Biblical/philosophy spouting dogs?
April 29, 2010
Watching the Congressional hearings into Goldman Sachs made me appreciate the prescience of Adam Haslett's brilliant novel, Union Atlantic.
Written in the year before the economic collapse of 2009, Haslett's novel features a young gun investment banker, Doug Fanning, whom we first meet in 1988 when he is stationed on a US naval ship that is escorting Kuwaiti tankers through the Straits of Hormuz. Fanning sees an unidentified plane on his radar, and alerts his commander. A decision is made to fire upon the plane and 290 people lost their lives as their Iranian Airbus passenger jet was shot down by the Americans.
The incident gets covered up, as well as the fact that Fanning failed to tell his commander that the jet was ascending, not descending as the commander was told. This incident and its aftermath leads Fanning to become the kind of man who later sets in motion a financial disaster that threatens the U.S. banking system.
Fanning becomes a big success as an investment banker at Union Atlantic. He takes risks there as well, and as long as he produces big profits for the bank and in turn himself, he can cut all the corners he likes. His boss is willfully ignorant of Fanning's schemes.
When Fanning builds a huge McMansion next to property owned by Charlotte Graves, he underestimates her. The land was owned by her grandfather, and Charlotte believes his house is obscene. Charlotte, a retired teacher, is eccentric, slipping into insanity. She believes that her two dogs are the incarnated Malcolm X and Cotton Mather, and they frequently share their conflicting advice with Charlotte.
Charlotte ends up tutoring Nate, a teenage boy whose father recently committed suicide. Nate and his mother are barely existing together. He breaks into Fanning's home, and ends up in a dangerous sexual relationship with Fanning. Fanning wants Nate to help get Charlotte off his back, and he is willing to use Nate's vulnerability to get what he wants.
When a colleague working for Fanning runs a scheme that unravels, Charlotte brother Henry Graves, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, becomes involved in trying to keep this from ruining the entire entangled U. S. economy. (Hank Paulson, anyone?)
How Haslett weaves these stories together is a wonder. He doesn't write this novel, he crafts it. It took me along time to read this book because I frequently reread passages, they were that beautiful. Of Nate realizing that Charlotte needed him, he writes
These last many months the intuition of others' needs had become Nate's second nature, as if his father's going had cut him a pair of new, lidless eyes that couldn't help but see into a person such as this this: marooned and specter-driven.
His characters are vivid and complex. Nate is flailing about, wanting to be loved and willing to debase himself to do it. Charlotte is a genius, bordering on insane, and Fanning is amoral, sinking further into the morass.
It is astonishing that a fiction writer created this dialogue in 2008, when Henry the NY Fed Chair says to the CEO of Union Atlantic
"Let me start by saying that if you or your board is under the impression that Union Atlantic is too big to fail, you're mistaken. There's no question here of a bailout. If you go under, the markets will take a hit, but with enough liquidity in the system we can cut you loose. I hope you understand that." This, of course, was a bluff. Henry has already begun receiving calls from the Treasury Department.
This novel is one of the best books I have read this decade. The story is relevant and the characters are powerful. Haslett is a true craftsmen. If you like good fiction, this is a book you must read.
Written in the year before the economic collapse of 2009, Haslett's novel features a young gun investment banker, Doug Fanning, whom we first meet in 1988 when he is stationed on a US naval ship that is escorting Kuwaiti tankers through the Straits of Hormuz. Fanning sees an unidentified plane on his radar, and alerts his commander. A decision is made to fire upon the plane and 290 people lost their lives as their Iranian Airbus passenger jet was shot down by the Americans.
The incident gets covered up, as well as the fact that Fanning failed to tell his commander that the jet was ascending, not descending as the commander was told. This incident and its aftermath leads Fanning to become the kind of man who later sets in motion a financial disaster that threatens the U.S. banking system.
Fanning becomes a big success as an investment banker at Union Atlantic. He takes risks there as well, and as long as he produces big profits for the bank and in turn himself, he can cut all the corners he likes. His boss is willfully ignorant of Fanning's schemes.
When Fanning builds a huge McMansion next to property owned by Charlotte Graves, he underestimates her. The land was owned by her grandfather, and Charlotte believes his house is obscene. Charlotte, a retired teacher, is eccentric, slipping into insanity. She believes that her two dogs are the incarnated Malcolm X and Cotton Mather, and they frequently share their conflicting advice with Charlotte.
Charlotte ends up tutoring Nate, a teenage boy whose father recently committed suicide. Nate and his mother are barely existing together. He breaks into Fanning's home, and ends up in a dangerous sexual relationship with Fanning. Fanning wants Nate to help get Charlotte off his back, and he is willing to use Nate's vulnerability to get what he wants.
When a colleague working for Fanning runs a scheme that unravels, Charlotte brother Henry Graves, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, becomes involved in trying to keep this from ruining the entire entangled U. S. economy. (Hank Paulson, anyone?)
How Haslett weaves these stories together is a wonder. He doesn't write this novel, he crafts it. It took me along time to read this book because I frequently reread passages, they were that beautiful. Of Nate realizing that Charlotte needed him, he writes
These last many months the intuition of others' needs had become Nate's second nature, as if his father's going had cut him a pair of new, lidless eyes that couldn't help but see into a person such as this this: marooned and specter-driven.
His characters are vivid and complex. Nate is flailing about, wanting to be loved and willing to debase himself to do it. Charlotte is a genius, bordering on insane, and Fanning is amoral, sinking further into the morass.
It is astonishing that a fiction writer created this dialogue in 2008, when Henry the NY Fed Chair says to the CEO of Union Atlantic
"Let me start by saying that if you or your board is under the impression that Union Atlantic is too big to fail, you're mistaken. There's no question here of a bailout. If you go under, the markets will take a hit, but with enough liquidity in the system we can cut you loose. I hope you understand that." This, of course, was a bluff. Henry has already begun receiving calls from the Treasury Department.
This novel is one of the best books I have read this decade. The story is relevant and the characters are powerful. Haslett is a true craftsmen. If you like good fiction, this is a book you must read.
August 19, 2015
Very good, with so many beautiful scenes, insightful observations and interesting characters. But the first chapters are pretty boring.
Still wondering how this got the Lambda, because the LGBT-part is just so minor.
November 18, 2024
This one was a chore to get through and just not for me. The writing felt like I was at a college seminar to discuss capitalism and finance.
The character dialogue also often felt strained and less like real people and more like mouthpieces for philosophical debates.
I still have a couple more of Hasletts books on my tbr so not writing him off completely as he is certainly a talented writer.
The character dialogue also often felt strained and less like real people and more like mouthpieces for philosophical debates.
I still have a couple more of Hasletts books on my tbr so not writing him off completely as he is certainly a talented writer.
September 4, 2011
Doug Fanning, a cocky war hero, is a tremendously successful banker in Boston, where he works for a major financial institution. Having grown up the son of a housekeeper in a working-class suburb of Boston, his competitive nature has taken him to the top of his profession, giving him authority for multi-million-dollar financial transactions all over the world. Charlotte Graves is an eccentric former teacher whose family has long had roots in the wealthy Boston suburb of Finden. She lives with her two dogs, whom recently have begun speaking to her in the voices of Cotton Mather and Malcolm X. Nate Fuller is a disaffected high school senior whose life has lost direction since his father's suicide.
Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic hits its stride as the lives of Doug, Charlotte, and Nate intersect in a number of ways. This is a story of how the thirst for power—be it financial or power over another human being—can obsess a person; it is a story of the strange twists and turns that personal relationships can take; and it is a story of how when you pursue what you want single-mindedly, you may discover it isn't what you want at all.
A great author can hook you on a story even when the characters aren't completely appealing, and that is the case with Union Atlantic. Adam Haslett is a fantastic writer and he has created tremendously flawed yet amazingly appealing characters who draw you fully into their story. While the book gets mired down a bit too much in its financial details, particularly at the beginning, at its heart this is more of a story about personal relationships than the banking world in which a great portion of it is set. Even as it headed toward its somewhat-expected conclusion, the book intrigued me tremendously, and I've found myself still thinking about the characters and wondering what happened to them after the book ended. That, in my opinion, is the mark of a great story.
Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic hits its stride as the lives of Doug, Charlotte, and Nate intersect in a number of ways. This is a story of how the thirst for power—be it financial or power over another human being—can obsess a person; it is a story of the strange twists and turns that personal relationships can take; and it is a story of how when you pursue what you want single-mindedly, you may discover it isn't what you want at all.
A great author can hook you on a story even when the characters aren't completely appealing, and that is the case with Union Atlantic. Adam Haslett is a fantastic writer and he has created tremendously flawed yet amazingly appealing characters who draw you fully into their story. While the book gets mired down a bit too much in its financial details, particularly at the beginning, at its heart this is more of a story about personal relationships than the banking world in which a great portion of it is set. Even as it headed toward its somewhat-expected conclusion, the book intrigued me tremendously, and I've found myself still thinking about the characters and wondering what happened to them after the book ended. That, in my opinion, is the mark of a great story.
March 20, 2010
Union Atlantic has everything one could need from a contemporary novel, except for, perhaps, a sense of humor. Which isn't to say that it isn't a pleasurable read: it is. Just not exactly... satisfying.
Much of the pleasure here comes from Haslett's prose. Haslett knows exactly when to flex his muscles: in conjuring up the romance of a New England summer; the romance of youth; the romance of a secret, old, and useless pain; and, of course, the romance of money, both kept safe and played with.
However, parts of Charlotte's story felt like a cheat, both in terms of character and plot—the dogs and the land and the unlikely links to power all a deus ex machina that ends up mattering little in the end. Charlotte's ultimate fate is recalled for us at a distance by young Nate, in his final POV.
What to make of Nate, exactly? Haslett has joked in interviews that Nate's story is his "coming of age novel." It's impossible not to love Nate—Haslett's physical descriptions of the boy pretty much make you want to hug him every other sentence. However, I missed something deeper in his thread—some incisive conclusion or argument about youth—embedded as Nate's story is in an old world full of old mistakes, old money, and history repeating itself.
Much of the pleasure here comes from Haslett's prose. Haslett knows exactly when to flex his muscles: in conjuring up the romance of a New England summer; the romance of youth; the romance of a secret, old, and useless pain; and, of course, the romance of money, both kept safe and played with.
However, parts of Charlotte's story felt like a cheat, both in terms of character and plot—the dogs and the land and the unlikely links to power all a deus ex machina that ends up mattering little in the end. Charlotte's ultimate fate is recalled for us at a distance by young Nate, in his final POV.
What to make of Nate, exactly? Haslett has joked in interviews that Nate's story is his "coming of age novel." It's impossible not to love Nate—Haslett's physical descriptions of the boy pretty much make you want to hug him every other sentence. However, I missed something deeper in his thread—some incisive conclusion or argument about youth—embedded as Nate's story is in an old world full of old mistakes, old money, and history repeating itself.
November 10, 2014
A nice surprise. I only bought it because I had read Haslett’s short story collection, You Are Not a Stranger Here, and I was surprised to read of a really sweet gay teen Nate and a “straight” man Doug, who tolerates him for the sexual release. Perhaps not as literary as Haslett’s stories except perhaps for his portrayal of Charlotte. Her dogs “talk,” spout the most seemingly erudite kinds of information, but they turn out only (surprise!) to be Charlotte in the progression of losing her mind.
I've read it twice. Both times the end seems rushed, if not pat, then just a little too neat. Doug, whom we’ve come to like, escapes his legal problems by leaving the country, returning to the Middle East instead of paying for his crimes. Of course, he feels (and perhaps we do, too) that he has not committed a crime in the muddled milieu of early twenty-first century finance. Hope Haslett does better next time. He’s a better writer than this.
[In spite of my thinking, I really have fond memories of reading this book, largely because H. admirably writes a novel with gay characters and gay behavior, but it is not a gay novel, is not part of the genre fiction of late 1980s and early 1990s.]
I've read it twice. Both times the end seems rushed, if not pat, then just a little too neat. Doug, whom we’ve come to like, escapes his legal problems by leaving the country, returning to the Middle East instead of paying for his crimes. Of course, he feels (and perhaps we do, too) that he has not committed a crime in the muddled milieu of early twenty-first century finance. Hope Haslett does better next time. He’s a better writer than this.
[In spite of my thinking, I really have fond memories of reading this book, largely because H. admirably writes a novel with gay characters and gay behavior, but it is not a gay novel, is not part of the genre fiction of late 1980s and early 1990s.]
September 2, 2016
Another capable fictional response to the banking crisis. Main character Doug Fanning is seemingly invincible: he thinks he is perfect and untouchable – that the property dispute threatening his mansion will just go away, that he can have an offhand sexual relationship with a teenage boy and no one will be any the wiser, and that he can commit fraud without getting caught.
When his inevitable fall comes and he is returned to the Middle East setting where he experienced his first humiliation in Gulf War service, it’s a bit of a letdown; he is no classic tragic hero, just another disaffected young narcissist. The novel is reminiscent of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom (and indeed, Franzen and Haslett seem to be pals) with its setting of suburban angst, and of A Week in December with its Dickensian fable of society gone wrong – through the lens of banking misconduct. Haslett will be one to watch out for in the future.
(This review formed part of an article about books on the financial crisis for Bookkaholic.)
When his inevitable fall comes and he is returned to the Middle East setting where he experienced his first humiliation in Gulf War service, it’s a bit of a letdown; he is no classic tragic hero, just another disaffected young narcissist. The novel is reminiscent of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom (and indeed, Franzen and Haslett seem to be pals) with its setting of suburban angst, and of A Week in December with its Dickensian fable of society gone wrong – through the lens of banking misconduct. Haslett will be one to watch out for in the future.
(This review formed part of an article about books on the financial crisis for Bookkaholic.)
February 14, 2019
WOW.
I was about 100 pages into this novel and continually thought, "Why am I reading this?" Then I just got to a point where I couldn't put it down and THEN IT STATED TO TOUCH MY SOUL TO THE POINT OF OPEN-JAWEDNESS. WTF ADAM HASLETT. I was so scared that this was going to be nothing like "You Are Not A Stranger Here," but it was of the same brilliant caliber.
Honestly, if I could have written one character in my life it would either be Lisbeth or Doug from Union Atlantic. This novel was so understatedly PERFECT. It sneaks up on you, it hides until it wants you to see it, and then it kidnaps you and you love every second of it. I don't know what it is about this book or Haslett's phrasing but it is genius and it says a lot when a reader has no idea how to explain what they are in love with... isn't that true love?!
There isn't much going on in this novel but it is a whirlwind and you find yourself lost in the characters and their honest and true humanity. Oh my goodness... this is literature. This is why I read.
SECOND READ: I learned so much more about the intricacies of this story and the full circle it makes as it ends. It still is so so special to me.
I was about 100 pages into this novel and continually thought, "Why am I reading this?" Then I just got to a point where I couldn't put it down and THEN IT STATED TO TOUCH MY SOUL TO THE POINT OF OPEN-JAWEDNESS. WTF ADAM HASLETT. I was so scared that this was going to be nothing like "You Are Not A Stranger Here," but it was of the same brilliant caliber.
Honestly, if I could have written one character in my life it would either be Lisbeth or Doug from Union Atlantic. This novel was so understatedly PERFECT. It sneaks up on you, it hides until it wants you to see it, and then it kidnaps you and you love every second of it. I don't know what it is about this book or Haslett's phrasing but it is genius and it says a lot when a reader has no idea how to explain what they are in love with... isn't that true love?!
There isn't much going on in this novel but it is a whirlwind and you find yourself lost in the characters and their honest and true humanity. Oh my goodness... this is literature. This is why I read.
SECOND READ: I learned so much more about the intricacies of this story and the full circle it makes as it ends. It still is so so special to me.
January 2, 2017
I cannot believe that this book existed in the world for six years before I read it. Haslett is now up there with my must-read favourite contemporary authors and I'll read anything he writes. His two novels and one short story collection show tremendous range and skill and intelligence and wisdom and I want more from him as soon as possible please.
April 22, 2012
If, when you started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, you spent the first chapter or so hoping the banking/industrial explanations would end, this is probably not going to be an ideal read. If, like me, you've been riveted by the behind-the-scenes drama of the banking crisis for the past 5ish years, Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic is the perfect accompaniment to the daily paper: a humanization of society's current villain class without any attempt to apologize or uncomplicate their choices.
The story follows four major point of view characters (though it occasionally dips into others) whose lives intersect in and out of the world of corporate banking: Doug, the daredevil investment banker on the rise; Henry, the nostalgic New York Fed president; Charlotte, a retired history teacher beginning to feel the system she's lectured on is actually evil; and Nate, a teenager growing up in the shadow of a bedroom community's vast wealth.
Doug works for Union Atlantic, a massive (think Citibank) investments-and-everything international firm, where he's paid to take and encourage massive risk; Henry is paid to keep an eye out for systemic risk just like this. The set up would seem to present these two men as having the central conflict, and yet it's Charlotte who represents the true angry party. At the book's start, we notice that her sanity might be questionable; she's begun to hear religious and cultural pronouncements from her beloved dogs, Wilkie and Samuel, that encourage her to believe her new neighbor's megaMcMansion might be a symbol of true evil.
The most memorable scenes in the book are the most outrageous -- a Fourth of July party gone completely, hideously, hilariously wrong is the grandest moment and clearest denunciation of wealth in Haslett's book -- but the best scenes are the most subtle. When Charlotte's otherwise powerful brother must confront her over her declining mental state, his timidity in the face of her righteousness briefly convinces -- or at least confuses -- the reader to reconsider who is sane and reasonable.
In the end, I think that's what Haslett's book wants from its readers. At the end, we wonder less who's right and who's wrong -- the villains here are clear -- but whether the system that creates them is even a fair measuring stick.
I'd give this a personal 5, but I think it might register as a 3 for those who don't like giant blocks of text about derivatives trading.
The story follows four major point of view characters (though it occasionally dips into others) whose lives intersect in and out of the world of corporate banking: Doug, the daredevil investment banker on the rise; Henry, the nostalgic New York Fed president; Charlotte, a retired history teacher beginning to feel the system she's lectured on is actually evil; and Nate, a teenager growing up in the shadow of a bedroom community's vast wealth.
Doug works for Union Atlantic, a massive (think Citibank) investments-and-everything international firm, where he's paid to take and encourage massive risk; Henry is paid to keep an eye out for systemic risk just like this. The set up would seem to present these two men as having the central conflict, and yet it's Charlotte who represents the true angry party. At the book's start, we notice that her sanity might be questionable; she's begun to hear religious and cultural pronouncements from her beloved dogs, Wilkie and Samuel, that encourage her to believe her new neighbor's megaMcMansion might be a symbol of true evil.
The most memorable scenes in the book are the most outrageous -- a Fourth of July party gone completely, hideously, hilariously wrong is the grandest moment and clearest denunciation of wealth in Haslett's book -- but the best scenes are the most subtle. When Charlotte's otherwise powerful brother must confront her over her declining mental state, his timidity in the face of her righteousness briefly convinces -- or at least confuses -- the reader to reconsider who is sane and reasonable.
In the end, I think that's what Haslett's book wants from its readers. At the end, we wonder less who's right and who's wrong -- the villains here are clear -- but whether the system that creates them is even a fair measuring stick.
I'd give this a personal 5, but I think it might register as a 3 for those who don't like giant blocks of text about derivatives trading.
April 7, 2010
Although most reviewers praised Haslett's ambitious debut novel, they agreed on little else. Some extolled his richly imagined and beautifully depicted characters, while others denounced them as overly simplistic ciphers. Critics regarded Haslett's writing by turns as elegant, overwrought, graceful, and awkward, and they generally considered the wealth of financial information he imparts ""so unobtrusive that he teaches a great deal without appearing pedagogical"" (San Francisco Chronicle). However, rival reviewers likened such information to a dull newspaper article. Despite their differences, the critics found something to admire. Through his tight control of language, dialogue, and action, Haslett manages to juggle numerous storylines and topical issues, which yields a multilayered novel that manages to be ""both brainy and soap-dishy"" (Boston Globe). This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
December 29, 2009
Very good indeed. It's a little shaggy in places but the writing is beautiful and it is just a smart novel - filled with ideas and things to ponder. Shocking - in a good way - ending.
May 28, 2012
Adam Haslett’s 2002 short story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here explored topics we often conceal from others: solitude, suicide, mental illness, and death. These themes are present in all of Haslett’s exquisitely crafted stories. Haslett possesses an exceptional gift of bringing together characters with very different values, social statuses, and sexual orientations. As an anthropologist for wayward souls and misfits, Haslett is fascinated with the beauty and learning that emerge from the intersections of these various characters.
Union Atlantic, Haslett’s first novel, continues exploring these themes. Doug Fanning, Nate Fuller, and Charlotte Graves, the novel’s three main characters, first appear to have little in common. Doug is a former soldier who later makes a small fortune in the banking industry. Nate is a recent high school graduate, a conscious underachiever who is mourning his father’s suicide. Charlotte is a former high school history teacher, and she is descending into mental illness.
Doug, Nate, and Charlotte are all haunted with the memory of deaths, some in the far past and some more recent. Doug served as a soldier on a naval ship in the Persian Gulf in 1988. The crew of the Vincennes misinterpreted a civilian plane as an enemy carrier, one that was preparing to attack. The Vincennes shot down the plane and killed myriad innocent civilians, including families with children. Although Doug was not directly responsible for the deaths he was present when the orders were given. This incident , combined with his codependent relationship with his alcoholic mother, helped shape layers of indifference and self-preservation. Many reviewers have stated that Fanning is a character lacking a strong moral code---or a character without morals---but this is too simplistic a response. Doug sees people the way corporations see people: not as individuals but as groups that are to be manipulated and used.
Doug is a complex character, and Haslett spends more time with him than he does Charlotte or Nate. You want Doug to feel something or at the very least reach an understanding about how his actions affect others. Yet this would not be a genuine character trajectory for Doug. Doug’s character in many ways symbolizes capitalism as a social structure. The downfall of one is the downfall of the other. However, Haslett raises important questions: Can our world survive without capitalism? Is it possible for a bank the size of Union Atlantic, the Brodigninain financial institution where Doug served as both head of foreign operations and head of Department of Special Plans (If the latter title sounds suspicious in an Enron type of way, then you’re right on track.), to actually collapse? Doesn’t our world need people like Fanning? As Charlotte, who is engaged in a lawsuit over land with Fanning, tells Nate, “ ‘Can you trust the pulse of life without becoming Mr. Fanning? Because he is the future. One way or the other. His kind of rapaciousness, it doesn’t end. It just bides its time.’”
When Charlotte was a younger woman she had a passionate love affair with an intellectual named Eric. Charlotte is not a woman who offers affections easily, and her relationship with Eric was the only significant romantic relationship she experienced in her life. Charlotte’s time with Eric was limited, and he died of a heroin overdose when she was with him. His death affected Charlotte for the rest of her life, and she retreated into a self-righteous isolation. Imagine a cross amongst Miss Havisham, Angela Davis, and Hilary Rodham Clinton. She directs her anger toward Doug because of the ostentatious mansion he built next door to her house, and she simultaneously mentors Nate because he reminds her of Eric. Nate, similar to Charlotte and Doug, is also living in the shadow of death. The difference is that Nathan’s father committed suicide less than a year before the narrative begins, and Nathan is much younger and far less capable of understanding his grief than either Fanning or Charlotte. Fanning uses Nate to get information about Charlotte for the lawsuit, and he “rewards” Nate by letting Nate perform unrequited sexual activities on Fanning. These experiences are not about sexual identity for Fanning, but they can also not be relegated into the murky categories of control and manipulation. Yes, those are definitely driving forces, but Fanning does feel something for Nate. Early in the novel Haslett refers to Fanning’s feelings as “a passing sorrow.” Indeed, Fanning both cares for and detests Nate. After their final encounter, Fanning looks at Nate and describes him as “a lamed foal awaiting its owners merciful bullet.”
The deaths the characters have experienced, as well as the solitude in which they reside, shape their actions. It would be too simplistic to only link the characters to a larger “theme” they may or may not represent, but I have already connected Fanning to (the death of) capitalism. Charlotte’s descent easily parallels our country’s loss of conviction---a death of the intellect, if you will. Nate, caught between Charlotte and Fanning, identifies more with the values of the former but will inherit a world shaped by the values of the latter. The ending of Union Atlantic felt a little rushed, and as any good novel does, it left me wanting more. For example, it was clear why Nate would let someone like Fanning sexually and emotionally dominate him, but what was not clear by the novel’s ending was how this relationship affected Nate. The last scene with Nate shows the possibility of a healthier relationship with another boy closer to Nate’s age, but it’s unclear how deeply Fanning’s actions scarred him. The strongest moments in Union Atlantic are the ones that read as short stories, Haslett’s forte: Chapter 9 tells the beautiful, heartbreaking story of Charlotte’s relationship with Eric. Chapter Nineteen sees Fanning reunited, briefly, with his mother. This happier, healthier version of her does not match the solitary, drunken images he has carried with him all his adult life. The biggest commonality amongst Fanning, Charlotte, and Nate is that---in very different ways---they are all outcasts, ghosts who are unable to engage with the world. At the end of the novel only Nate has the promise of a different future, the promise of moving beyond “the netherworld between the living and the forgotten dead.”
Union Atlantic, Haslett’s first novel, continues exploring these themes. Doug Fanning, Nate Fuller, and Charlotte Graves, the novel’s three main characters, first appear to have little in common. Doug is a former soldier who later makes a small fortune in the banking industry. Nate is a recent high school graduate, a conscious underachiever who is mourning his father’s suicide. Charlotte is a former high school history teacher, and she is descending into mental illness.
Doug, Nate, and Charlotte are all haunted with the memory of deaths, some in the far past and some more recent. Doug served as a soldier on a naval ship in the Persian Gulf in 1988. The crew of the Vincennes misinterpreted a civilian plane as an enemy carrier, one that was preparing to attack. The Vincennes shot down the plane and killed myriad innocent civilians, including families with children. Although Doug was not directly responsible for the deaths he was present when the orders were given. This incident , combined with his codependent relationship with his alcoholic mother, helped shape layers of indifference and self-preservation. Many reviewers have stated that Fanning is a character lacking a strong moral code---or a character without morals---but this is too simplistic a response. Doug sees people the way corporations see people: not as individuals but as groups that are to be manipulated and used.
Doug is a complex character, and Haslett spends more time with him than he does Charlotte or Nate. You want Doug to feel something or at the very least reach an understanding about how his actions affect others. Yet this would not be a genuine character trajectory for Doug. Doug’s character in many ways symbolizes capitalism as a social structure. The downfall of one is the downfall of the other. However, Haslett raises important questions: Can our world survive without capitalism? Is it possible for a bank the size of Union Atlantic, the Brodigninain financial institution where Doug served as both head of foreign operations and head of Department of Special Plans (If the latter title sounds suspicious in an Enron type of way, then you’re right on track.), to actually collapse? Doesn’t our world need people like Fanning? As Charlotte, who is engaged in a lawsuit over land with Fanning, tells Nate, “ ‘Can you trust the pulse of life without becoming Mr. Fanning? Because he is the future. One way or the other. His kind of rapaciousness, it doesn’t end. It just bides its time.’”
When Charlotte was a younger woman she had a passionate love affair with an intellectual named Eric. Charlotte is not a woman who offers affections easily, and her relationship with Eric was the only significant romantic relationship she experienced in her life. Charlotte’s time with Eric was limited, and he died of a heroin overdose when she was with him. His death affected Charlotte for the rest of her life, and she retreated into a self-righteous isolation. Imagine a cross amongst Miss Havisham, Angela Davis, and Hilary Rodham Clinton. She directs her anger toward Doug because of the ostentatious mansion he built next door to her house, and she simultaneously mentors Nate because he reminds her of Eric. Nate, similar to Charlotte and Doug, is also living in the shadow of death. The difference is that Nathan’s father committed suicide less than a year before the narrative begins, and Nathan is much younger and far less capable of understanding his grief than either Fanning or Charlotte. Fanning uses Nate to get information about Charlotte for the lawsuit, and he “rewards” Nate by letting Nate perform unrequited sexual activities on Fanning. These experiences are not about sexual identity for Fanning, but they can also not be relegated into the murky categories of control and manipulation. Yes, those are definitely driving forces, but Fanning does feel something for Nate. Early in the novel Haslett refers to Fanning’s feelings as “a passing sorrow.” Indeed, Fanning both cares for and detests Nate. After their final encounter, Fanning looks at Nate and describes him as “a lamed foal awaiting its owners merciful bullet.”
The deaths the characters have experienced, as well as the solitude in which they reside, shape their actions. It would be too simplistic to only link the characters to a larger “theme” they may or may not represent, but I have already connected Fanning to (the death of) capitalism. Charlotte’s descent easily parallels our country’s loss of conviction---a death of the intellect, if you will. Nate, caught between Charlotte and Fanning, identifies more with the values of the former but will inherit a world shaped by the values of the latter. The ending of Union Atlantic felt a little rushed, and as any good novel does, it left me wanting more. For example, it was clear why Nate would let someone like Fanning sexually and emotionally dominate him, but what was not clear by the novel’s ending was how this relationship affected Nate. The last scene with Nate shows the possibility of a healthier relationship with another boy closer to Nate’s age, but it’s unclear how deeply Fanning’s actions scarred him. The strongest moments in Union Atlantic are the ones that read as short stories, Haslett’s forte: Chapter 9 tells the beautiful, heartbreaking story of Charlotte’s relationship with Eric. Chapter Nineteen sees Fanning reunited, briefly, with his mother. This happier, healthier version of her does not match the solitary, drunken images he has carried with him all his adult life. The biggest commonality amongst Fanning, Charlotte, and Nate is that---in very different ways---they are all outcasts, ghosts who are unable to engage with the world. At the end of the novel only Nate has the promise of a different future, the promise of moving beyond “the netherworld between the living and the forgotten dead.”
June 19, 2018
Great solid story with interesting plot and characters set among the financial crisis and the run-up to the second gulf war. This was a nice change from the more esoteric/experimental books I've been reading, the narrative and the characters are all straightforward and kept me engaged with one exception: the dogs. I won't say more except that if all that text had been cut this would have been an even better book, it was just dull and went nowhere. I read the audiobook edition and this was the one point where the reader's voice also drove me a little batty but otherwise he was excellent. Anyway, a minor quibble on a solid story.
March 17, 2019
Meh.
For a story circulating around a banking crisis the associated scenes were pretty dry and uninformative. I didn’t really care about any of the characters. I especially didn’t care about Doug, who always came across as disconnected from his own world. And his dialogue was sometimes... disturbing? Just a really uncomfortable character. I mean, I didn’t even care about Sam and Wilkie! You (as a non-reader) know almost as much about them as I do. They’re freakin’ talking philosophical dogs without much purpose other than being a crutch for the other of our, otherwise dull, main characters. Maybe I didn’t “get” it.
For a story circulating around a banking crisis the associated scenes were pretty dry and uninformative. I didn’t really care about any of the characters. I especially didn’t care about Doug, who always came across as disconnected from his own world. And his dialogue was sometimes... disturbing? Just a really uncomfortable character. I mean, I didn’t even care about Sam and Wilkie! You (as a non-reader) know almost as much about them as I do. They’re freakin’ talking philosophical dogs without much purpose other than being a crutch for the other of our, otherwise dull, main characters. Maybe I didn’t “get” it.
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