FAMILY BUSINESS

by Vincent Patrick ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 30, 1985

Patrick returns to the scene of his first literary caper, The Pope of Greenwich Village (1979): the polyethnic New York he knows and evokes so well. This second novel shares with the first an unerring feel for the life of the street, its colorful denizens, and their rythmic patter--all rendered with a rollicking sense of humor guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. Once again, Patrick's hapless heroes are after one thing: the big score, their ticket to new lives. And once again, everything goes amok. In this case, three generations of McMullen men prove that larcenous yearnings, if not the ability to fulfill them, are indeed genetic. Grandpa Jesse, a fighting-trim 70-year-old, hopes to retire from a life of small-time scheming and smooth operating. But it's his admiring grandson Adam, a drug dealer and MIT dropout, who puts the deal together (it relies on his knowledge of molecular biology!). Reluctantly, his father Vito, a once-burned second-story man (who now owns a successful wholesale meat distributorship), allows himself to be talked into the new ""family business,"" if only to protect his son. The actual theft and its planning are conventional stuff, TV fodder. But they occasion the book's real concerns: ethnicity, family, and loyalty. Together, the McMullens represent a racial m‚lange of Italian, Irish, Cherokee, and Jewish blood--a vein which Patrick doesn't hesitate to mine for all it's worth. He seldom resorts to stereotypes, though, even when the temptation arises at the truly hilarious Irish wake which makes up the book's centerpiece. But when the burglary takes his characters outside New York, to Silicon Valley, where they're to pinch some valuable gems, Patrick's novel falters; his West Coast shriek is commonplace. All in all, the book's questionable morality, which values loyalty over honesty, and romanticizes crime, doesn't detract from its stirring portrayal of generational conflict. And the familiar plot and its sentimental ending certainly shouldn't prevent Hollywood from scooping it up soon.

Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Poseidon/Pocket Books--dist. by Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1985

Categories: FICTION