Tuesday, October 17, 2017

"A Thousand Pardons," by Jonathan Dee

Jonathan Dee, another author whom I have by-passed although he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2010 for a novel. "The Privileges."
What can one say about "A Thousand Pardons"? Very well written, very well constructed, good length (214 pages), and an extraordinary insight into the complicated minds of the principal characters. An intriguing story of marital breakdown and the way the wife, Helen, establishes a new career in public relations and, coincidentally, meets up again with a complicated character from her schooldays who has become a famous movie star. We occupy the minds of the husband, Ben, and of the adopted daughter, Sara, who stays with her mother and has her own problems.
I felt somehow that the novel was, in a sense, 'old-fashioned,' and attractively so--a straight story of characters under a variety of strains, a plot development that kept one reading, and ultimately a satisfactory resolution--although I could see that resolution coming from a long way away.
Let's see what Richard Ford said about it: "...so witty and savvy and adroit and basically humane--as well as breathtakingly intelligent--that it shines beyond all categories on its astonishing merits."

In the light of that--maybe I have somewhat downplayed its merits.

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