David Gilbert (1)

I really enjoyed & Sons by David Gilbert. It’s the kind of book that feels grounded and real, especially in how it looks at family relationships and personal goals. The writing is clear and approachable, and the characters feel like people you might actually know, complete with flaws and complicated motivations. What stood out to me most was how the story shows the ripple effects of decisions made years earlier, both professionally and personally. It’s engaging without being heavy, and show more it stays with you after you finish in a quiet, thoughtful way. show less

After the first several pages of & Sons, it becomes abundantly clear that David Gilbert intended to settle for nothing less than reaching for the stars. By the end of this ambitious novel, the reader is left with the impression that the author very nearly succeeded in achieving that lofty goal. Packed with more themes, story lines, and literary devices than one might find in three different books, Gilbert has crafted a work that can be seen in many ways: a touching and heartbreaking story of show more a father’s inability to connect with his sons, a “book about books” look at the debilitating effect that the creative process can have on personal relationships, a tale of brothers coming to grips with their lives—and each other—as they try to step out of the long shadow cast by someone else’s fame, and a love-hate paean to New York City that only someone who was raised there would dare to write.

Having finished it a few days ago, I am struck by the wide range of thoughts and emotions that the novel still evokes. Indeed, it is at once one of the most impressive and more frustrating books I have read in a long time. Above all else, I found Gilbert’s prose to be nothing short of sublime, alternating between passages that were brilliantly insightful, extremely moving, and very funny. He also has a great ear for producing the sort of realistic dialogue that seemed like the kind of things that people would actually say to one another given the circumstances. What is truly remarkable to me is how much I enjoyed the overall experience of reading a book in which I found virtually none of the main characters to be particularly likeable.

However, the story also felt as if it had been stretched a little too thin in places. The entire novel-within-a-novel device became somewhat tedious and distracting at times; in fact, it was also a little brazen of the author to “reproduce” so much of A. N. Dyer’s fictional Ampersand within the pages of his novel, given that the former was portrayed as having a cult following that rivaled J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Further, there were parts of the narrative—the over-the-top film produced by the Dyer’s youngest son involving the death of a former girlfriend as well as the book’s final dramatic events come to mind—that seemed forced and strained the reader’s credulity.

So, is & Sons a compelling and entertaining near-masterpiece or an unfortunate near-miss sunk by its own overly grand ambitions? While I suspect that a convincing case can be made on either side of that question, I think the first might be the right one. Gilbert has produced a smart and thoughtful work with an emotional core that is likely to remain with me long after most of the shortcomings in the plot have faded away. show less

I enjoyed & Sons immensely, and I'm so happy I had a chance to read it before all the hype starts up--because, believe me, there will be hype. It's got blurbs from everyone and their brother, and an interview with the author by Amor Towles, who apparently doesn't have anything else to do.

So, I kept thinking of ways to describe this book, and coming up with things like:
"As good as everyone says Jonathan Franzen's novels are."
"Kind of a modern Updike, Rabbity-thing."
"One of the show more less-postmodern Michael Chabon books, ca. Wonder Boys."
"A much better NYC book than that Meg Wolitzer novel that just came out."

& Sons is a book about envy, and NYC, and failed relationships, and Art, and all of that good stuff. I am ashamed to admit that, at the beginning, when the narrator proclaims a certain character will be dead by the end of the week, I thought he was referring to someone else, so I was quite surprised, there, at the end of the book.

Speaking of the narrator, I don't fault him for being unreliable, just for being awkward and second-person while often acting third-person, hence confusing me from time to time. Plus, he wasn't likeable, and I didn't want to spend time with him, so when I thought I'd escaped him, only to have him rear his unfortunate voice again, I became quite disappointed. show less

“& Sons,” by David Gilbert, is certainly worth all the fuss that critics have made about it. It is an impressive debut, unquestionably one of the finest I’ve read this year. The novel is a massive sprawling homage to the great American literary novel; a penetrating psychological dissection of male-centered, familial and familial-like relationships; a strange, unsettling—almost freakish—study of a literary idol and one of his more fanatic admirers; and perhaps best of all, an show more artifice through which the author showcases his extraordinary literary talents. Personally, I had a smile on my face through the entire book. I found literary delights within almost every paragraph and surprise twists in time, reference, and plot direction on almost every page. I never knew from one paragraph to the next where this book was taking me and after a while, I didn’t care. I abandoned myself to the book’s intellectual joy ride and thankfully, it never let me down.

So what about the plot? Well, there is one, and it is a good subtle character-driven plot that gets better as the story draws to its conclusion, but this is a book primarily about the personal struggles that shape lives and the incredible complexity of important interpersonal family and family-like relationships. The bulk of the content is there to build character and provide psychological depth and understanding about these relationships. It’s important not to skip over what may seem to be many digressive paragraphs in pursuit of what you may think is the plot; you’ll miss too much. And you need to pay close attention to the book within the book (recognizable by being printed in a different typeface), because knowing that plot is essential to figuring out what is happening in the main plot. Astonishingly, in the end, the author is able to pull everything together and all that detail suddenly makes sense and supports the whole. It’s brilliant, and a good ending to a terrific book. You leave the book not pondering the plot, but thinking about the book’s characters, particularly the intricate relationship dynamics that have shaped their lives.

Many reviewers mention difficulties they have with Phillip Topping as the book’s narrator. David Gilbert constructs Phillip as both a first-person narrator and an omniscient third-person reporter of all that takes place outside his own experience. That’s a perplexing combination! Some reviewers resolve the issue by calling him an “unreliable narrator,” and indeed, if Phillip were real, that is exactly what he would be. But in a literary sense, to call Phillip an “unreliable narrator” misses the point. If that were so, then all authors would be “unreliable narrators.” This is a book about literary writers, the art of creating fiction, and the price that many authors pay for pursuing this demanding and difficult craft. By making Phillip both a first- and third-person omniscient narrator, the author (David Gilbert) is drawing attention to the fact that this is fiction. None of the characters are real no matter how real they seem…and in Gilbert’s able hands these characters pop off the page and virtually shake your hand. No, this is all about fiction, the art of fiction, and the creation of “real” lives through words. As a literary construct, to be a true “unreliable narrator,” it requires that something significant the narrator said was incorrect…that the narrator cannot be trusted to tell the truth. But that is not what happens in this book. We can trust Phillip’s omniscient view of his characters because Phillip is writing fiction…and then there is that other layer where we know that David Gilbert is the real author who created Phillip and all Phillip’s characters. It’s a book with many layers of fictional reality and the author wants you to not lose sight of this important fact. Remember it is a book about writing and authors and fiction.

This is a remarkable book full of fascinating characters and their emotional struggles. The book is not for everyone. But for the right reader—typically those who read a lot of literary fiction—this work can be tons of fun. If that fits you, don’t miss it. show less