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Union Atlantic (2009)

by Adam Haslett(Favorite Author)

3.34 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0385524471 (ISBN13: 9780385524476)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Nan A. Talese

review 1: To describe this novel as being about what it means to live in a post-9/11 democracy would be a bit too reductive, but would give the sense of the tension wrought by the warring principles that motivate the main characters. The responsibility to maintain the public good versus free market individualism, and all of the ethical conundrums that result from the clash of these two value sets, lies at the heart of this narrative. As an elderly retired history teacher slowly goes mad (so that she imagines her two dogs speaking in the voices of Cotton Mather and Malcolm X) and a Wall Street trader makes mincemeat of the financial markets for his own profit, the two fight over a small plot of land on which the trader has erected a house. Though the preceding description does not do... more any justice to the characters' complexities, those complexities are there and are the real reason this story shines. Dave's final pathetic confrontation with his formally alcoholic mother is an exceptional moment in a book with many excellent character-driven scenes. Some of those isolated moments are reminiscent of Haslett's first book -- a collection of short stories, perfectly wrought
review 2: (6/10) Union Atlantic is really a fusion of two seemingly disparate genres -- the "how the fuck did we get into this financial mess?" genre (mostly nonfiction books along with a bunch of NPR or Frontline reports) and the conventional literary novel and all of its preoccupations (family life, closted homosexuality, the angst of rich white people). The juxtaposition is a little awkward, but Haslett manages it well enough, and it conveys a sense of how the people involved in the financial slaughterhouses could narrate their lives in a way that made them the heroes. It's fairly well written, and Haslett especially shines in the beginning and ending, which are only barely connected to the main story. The biggest issue is that the characters tend to behave like stereotypes, and their interior lives aren't really convincing. This sort of counteracts Haslett's aspects to show the human (which is not neccesarily to say sympathetic) side of a distinctly impersonal world. As a novel, then, it never rises far above "okay", although it does provide a good approachable look into the lives of the 1%. less

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