Overview
Two men are classmates and friends at Harvard, though never all that close: Max, a brilliant student with a touch of the aesthete's affectations about him, and Charlie, some years older, having served in the Korean War. As Max sees it, Charlie excels in a single scull, soaks up martinis, and enjoys the favors of a particularly glamorous Radcliffe girl. Twenty years later, not having seen each other since college, the two men meet unexpectedly as guests at a villa on the shore of Lake Como. Max is now a law professor, circumspect and slightly sorry for himself - a man to whom relationships do not stick. Charlie has become a celebrated architect, the most successful member of their class. Beautiful when a young man, he has ripened into a foul-mouthed, golden-tongued giant: a demigod and a bully. In his imperious way, he proclaims that Max will henceforth be one of his chosen intimates. Charlie is right. Max's life becomes increasingly intertwined with Charlie's, and with that of Toby, Charlie's adolescent companion. When Toby is stricken by a devastating illness, Charlie performs an act of coolly calculated self-sacrifice, the only gesture he thinks will make a difference. Max bears witness, and learns a lesson that may at last complete his sentimental education. With all the force and elegance of his earlier work, Louis Begley's masterful new novel tells a gripping story of friendship and mortality.Winner of the PEN Hemingway Award and the Irish Times Book Award, this "powerful . . . consummately beautiful--and major work of literary art" (New York Times Book Review) tells the story of a man fleeing his marriage, and the two men who come to shadow and shape his life over the next 20 years.
Synopsis
Two men are classmates and friends at Harvard, though never all that close: Max, a brilliant student with a touch of the aesthete's affectations about him, and Charlie, some years older, having served in the Korean War. As Max sees it, Charlie excels in a single scull, soaks up martinis, and enjoys the favors of a particularly glamorous Radcliffe girl. Twenty years later, not having seen each other since college, the two men meet unexpectedly as guests at a villa on the shore of Lake Como. Max is now a law professor, circumspect and slightly sorry for himself - a man to whom relationships do not stick. Charlie has become a celebrated architect, the most successful member of their class. Beautiful when a young man, he has ripened into a foul-mouthed, golden-tongued giant: a demigod and a bully. In his imperious way, he proclaims that Max will henceforth be one of his chosen intimates. Charlie is right. Max's life becomes increasingly intertwined with Charlie's, and with that of Toby, Charlie's adolescent companion. When Toby is stricken by a devastating illness, Charlie performs an act of coolly calculated self-sacrifice, the only gesture he thinks will make a difference. Max bears witness, and learns a lesson that may at last complete his sentimental education. With all the force and elegance of his earlier work, Louis Begley's masterful new novel tells a gripping story of friendship and mortality.
Publishers Weekly
This piercingly observed and brilliant novel combines the ambience of Begley's The Man Who Came Late with some of the underlying themes of his Wartime Lies . Max Strong leads a life of privilege: a Harvard Law professor, he is also the author of a bestselling book, the unexpected heir of a sizable estate and the friend of jet-setting architects, moguls and diplomats. As narrator he devotes equal time to chronicling his own experiences and describing his intersections with Charlie Swan, a Harvard classmate with whom he is reunited one summer when both are guests at a villa at Lake Como. While Max, approaching 50, can say that his past has been ``unperceived, really not felt,'' Charlie is extravagant with his emotions, loudly exercising his passions. Max watches as Charlie becomes deeply involved with Toby, a breathtaking young man whom Max describes as ``Eros himself.'' When Toby gets AIDS--unnamed here but unmistakable--Max learns from Charlie what it means to endure, to survive and to surrender. Begley disarms the reader with his elegant prose, his ample sentences and ornate syntax cushioning the keenness of his perceptions. In the end, however, the reader, like Max, is forced to confront himself in the role of bystander and onlooker: Begley takes the measure not only of his characters, but also of his audience. (Apr.)