A bracingly intelligent work, though ultimately a prisoner of the genre’s conventions.
A savvy, fast-paced second novel about an economist’s midlife crisis.
Vincenzo D’Orsi is a senior economist with the World Bank in Washington, D.C. The 54-year-old Italian has responsibility for Latin America. In 2005, the radical Evo Morales is a shoo-in to win the presidency of Bolivia, and only Vincenzo has the authority to change bank policy toward that country. The U.S. representative at the bank tries to bully him into an aid cutoff. Not only does Vincenzo resist, he goes public, giving an interview to his old friend Walter, veteran Washington Post reporter. It is a pivotal moment; the move ends his long career at the bank, yet Vincenzo is unsure why he has acted so drastically; he still admires the bank, for all its defects. Mountford manages all this very well: The economics are delivered crisply, and Vincenzo’s impulsive exit rings true. The format for the midlife-crisis novel calls for professional and personal self-destruction, and on the personal level, Mountford is less sure-footed, as was also apparent in his 2011 debut (A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism). There can be no blowup with his wife, for Vincenzo is a widower. His beloved Cristina was killed in a traffic accident some two years earlier, so it’s his relationship with their grown daughter, Leonora, that must speed his self-destruction. He loves her dearly but loathes her boyfriend, which causes his not-entirely-convincing break with her. One welcome tweak to the format comes with Ben, a young black man, who Vincenzo believes is a CIA operative, who shows up out of the blue to threaten Vincenzo if he exacerbates U.S. relations with Latin America; the Italian has no green card and could be deported. But the die has been cast; at the invitation of Morales, Vincenzo travels to Bolivia (the setting for Mountford’s debut) with Walter. His required meltdown occurs when he delivers a boozy speech to a large audience in La Paz.
A bracingly intelligent work, though ultimately a prisoner of the genre’s conventions.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-935639-72-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Tin House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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