FAMOUS AFTER DEATH

John Cheever’s son (The Partisan, 1994, etc.) follows in the footsteps, if not quite in the spirit, of his father in this witty send-up of politics, publishing, and crime—and of the synergy they generate on really good days. Noel Hammersmith is an editor at prestigious Acropolis Press (Kafka’s first American publisher), where he edits diet books and dreams of getting himself down to 138 pounds. A Westchester commuter with a true Walter Mitty streak, Noel takes out his many daily frustrations by writing venomous letters to companies that have earned his wrath, including Brooks Brothers (for discontinuing their classic Brooks Blue shirt) and Golden Rule Vitamins (for selling weight-loss products that failed to help Noel lose weight). He also begins negotiations for a manuscript with an author who calls himself Che Guevara; the proposed book will describe terrorist networks and how they operate in the US. Soon afterward, a succession of extremely powerful homemade bombs is set off in public places around New York by someone known as the “Wordsworth Bomber——whom Noel, of course, suspects to be Che. Uncovering a bizarre anti-immigration cult that is linked to Che, he finds himself wanting to broadcast its political ramblings across the entire country. Has Noel, through his interest in Che’s book, become implicated in a nativist cult? What is Noel’s first duty here: to his country, or to his author? Or is it to his own career? Acropolis Press, after all, is being bought out (by a pet food company called Pretty Kitty, Inc.), and everyone’s job is on the line. Noel has a hard time sorting out his loyalties, but in the end he makes a deal with both the police and with Che that results in a fate that Noel could never have imagined even in his most fervid daydreams—and that makes him a very thin man. Hilarious and just bad-natured enough to be cruel (that is, accurate) in its satire of modern greed and modern fame: an across- the-board winner.