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Overview
"A fine new novel... The great pleasure of reading Louis Begley [is] his exceptional literary intelligence."
The New York Times Book Review
"Begley again demonstrates that he can reveal the complexities of society and personality with a clear eye and graceful style... Morethan meets the requirements of graceful fiction."
Time
Proud, traditional, and impeccably organized, Albert Schmidt is a button-down lawyer of the old school. But now, after years of carefulmanagement, his life is slowly unraveling. His beloved wife has recently died. He stumbles—or is he being pushed?—into earlyretirement. And his daughter, his only child, is planning to marry a man Schmidt cannot approve of, for reasons he can scarcely admit, even to himself. As Schmidt gropes for resolutions, he finds unexpected hope in an intense passion that comes out of the blue.
Set in the Hamptons and Manhattan, infused with black humor and startling eroticism, About Schmidt is both a meditation on lonelinessand on the power of romance to unlock the most impenetrable recesses of the heart.
"Comical, tough, unsparing; it is as if Louis Auchincloss had exchanged the kid gloves for brass knuckles... Interesting and nervy."
The Washington Post Book World
"A powerful story of a man's fall from grace... The Remains of the Day come[s] to mind."
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Stunning."
Los Angeles Times Book Review
Synopsis
"A fine new novel... The great pleasure of reading Louis Begley [is] his exceptional literary intelligence."
The New York Times Book Review
"Begley again demonstrates that he can reveal the complexities of society and personality with a clear eye and graceful style... Morethan meets the requirements of graceful fiction."
Time
Proud, traditional, and impeccably organized, Albert Schmidt is a button-down lawyer of the old school. But now, after years of carefulmanagement, his life is slowly unraveling. His beloved wife has recently died. He stumbles--or is he being pushed?--into earlyretirement. And his daughter, his only child, is planning to marry a man Schmidt cannot approve of, for reasons he can scarcely admit, even to himself. As Schmidt gropes for resolutions, he finds unexpected hope in an intense passion that comes out of the blue.
Set in the Hamptons and Manhattan, infused with black humor and startling eroticism, About Schmidt is both a meditation on lonelinessand on the power of romance to unlock the most impenetrable recesses of the heart.
"Comical, tough, unsparing; it is as if Louis Auchincloss had exchanged the kid gloves for brass knuckles... Interesting and nervy."
The Washington Post Book World
"A powerful story of a man's fall from grace... The Remains of the Day come[s] to mind."
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Stunning."
Los Angeles Times Book Review
Publishers Weekly
Both Auchincloss's sophisticated comedies of WASP manners and the terrain mapped in Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day come to mind as comparisons for Begley's new novel, but his discerning intellect and lapidary prose distinguish this powerful story of a man whose fall from grace has a double-edged irony. Albert Schmidt retired from his job in a white-shoe New York law office during his wife's terminal illness. In his 60s, he lives in her magnificent family home in the exclusive Long Island community of Bridgehampton, where he makes sardonic observations about those who betray his archaic values and rigid social standards. The most egregious traitor is his beautiful, brilliant (i.e., Harvard summa cum laude) daughter, Charlotte, whose decision to marry a blatantly ambitious Jewish lawyer is a bitter blow to Schmidtalthough he remains outwardly civil. Schmidt has no idea that his cool, remote behavior has alienated Charlotte, that she is aware of the veiled anti-Semitism he himself denies and that her new family, which Schmidt thinks vulgar, offers the warmth and human contact he has never provided. With sublime, delicious irony, Begley shows Schmidt's bizarre metamorphosis from a pillar of rectitude to a silly old fool; a Puerto Rican waitress younger than Charlotte is the instrument of Schmidt's descent down the primrose path. Taking advantage of Schmidt's loneliness, streetwise Carrie uses her sexual wiles to move herself and her drug-dealing boyfriend into his house and life. Begley guides the narrative with smooth aplomb and dry humor, providing a wealth of acutely observed social detail and a clear depiction of emotional dysfunction. Though his classic Holocaust novel, Wartime Lies, is a standard Begley can't improve upon, this elegant, sophisticated novel is another study in self-deception that confirms his reputation as a masterful literary novelist. (Sept.)
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Both Auchincloss's sophisticated comedies of WASP manners and the terrain mapped in Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day come to mind as comparisons for Begley's new novel, but his discerning intellect and lapidary prose distinguish this powerful story of a man whose fall from grace has a double-edged irony. Albert Schmidt retired from his job in a white-shoe New York law office during his wife's terminal illness. In his 60s, he lives in her magnificent family home in the exclusive Long Island community of Bridgehampton, where he makes sardonic observations about those who betray his archaic values and rigid social standards. The most egregious traitor is his beautiful, brilliant (i.e., Harvard summa cum laude) daughter, Charlotte, whose decision to marry a blatantly ambitious Jewish lawyer is a bitter blow to Schmidtalthough he remains outwardly civil. Schmidt has no idea that his cool, remote behavior has alienated Charlotte, that she is aware of the veiled anti-Semitism he himself denies and that her new family, which Schmidt thinks vulgar, offers the warmth and human contact he has never provided. With sublime, delicious irony, Begley shows Schmidt's bizarre metamorphosis from a pillar of rectitude to a silly old fool; a Puerto Rican waitress younger than Charlotte is the instrument of Schmidt's descent down the primrose path. Taking advantage of Schmidt's loneliness, streetwise Carrie uses her sexual wiles to move herself and her drug-dealing boyfriend into his house and life. Begley guides the narrative with smooth aplomb and dry humor, providing a wealth of acutely observed social detail and a clear depiction of emotional dysfunction. Though his classic Holocaust novel, Wartime Lies, is a standard Begley can't improve upon, this elegant, sophisticated novel is another study in self-deception that confirms his reputation as a masterful literary novelist. (Sept.)Library Journal
Once a highly successful lawyer of the old school, married to a topnotch book editor whom he loves deeply, Albert Schmidt is in the process of losing it all. His wife has died, he has left his firm early to cope with his loss, and his only daughter is now marrying a man whom he considers crass and graspingand who is, unaccountably, Jewish. Writing in fine form, Begley (As Max Saw It, LJ 4/1/96) achieves an extraordinary balance in this tart and stylish book. Perhaps Schmidtie was at times a distant father, an unfaithful husband, even a touch anti-Semitic (an issue which Jewish author Begley treats with great sensitivity)but he's still getting a rotten deal from his self-absorbed Yuppie daughter, who is quickly deserting him for her fianc's family. "Since I am not dead yet I don't think you'll get Mom's and my silver just now," he responds to one thoughtless request, and he soon takes up with a young Puerto Rican waitress who is far more vibrant and devoted than his stuffy offspring. Making us side with the flawed and prickly Schmidt is no mean feat, and Begley is to be commended. Having successfully portrayed outsiders in his previous works, he has taken on the consummate insider and treated him with grace and understanding. Essential.Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"Kirkus Reviews
An elegant, precise, droll novel about a lawyer's startling transformation, by the author of Wartime Lies (1991) and The Man Who Was Late (1993).A recent widower (he and his wife Mary had seemed to exemplify the old New York ideal of elegance and accomplishment), retired at the age of 60 from his law firm, Schmidt, seemingly a poster boy for the now fading world of the cultured, wealthy WASP, is vaguely melancholy, faintly discontented, stranded in his wife's handsome beachfront house in Bridgehampton. His self-involved daughter Charlotte (a devoted member of the public relations department of a tobacco company) announces her intention to marry Jon Riker, a humorless lawyer from Schmidt's firm. Schmidt, who had built a very lucrative legal career on his ability to be "always demonstrably and impeccably right," begins to feel the first stirrings of self- doubt. Does he object to Riker because he seems so one-dimensional, or because he's Jewish? And, with some amazement, he finds himself beginning an affair with a frank, exuberant waitress, a woman younger than his daughter. As Schmidt attempts to navigate increasingly turbulent waters (an outraged daughter, friends amused or appalled by his indiscretion), Begley deftly introduces long hidden pieces of Schmidt's former life. He was, it turns out, a tireless womanizer and a less-than-devoted dad. He's charmingly condescending toward those unlucky enough to be neither WASPS nor wealthy. He is, in fact, a bit of a cad. But it's one of the pleasures of Begley's increasingly dark narrative that he both reveals Schmidt's self-satisfied shortcomings and makes him nonetheless a fascinating character. And, as Schmidt faces a series of alarming problems (including his young lover's peculiar and softly menacing boyfriend), it's hard not to root for his success, for his newly aroused pleasure in life.
A sly, sharp portrait of an amoral but appealing figure, and of the declining world of privilege that has shaped him.