Louis Begley

This partly autobiographical novel tells the story of a young Jewish boy Maciek who together with his Aunt Tania pose as Catholic Poles during WW II to survive the Holocaust. The narrator is looking back on these childhood experiences as an old man, and remembers how much of his heritage and identity had to be denied in order to survive. "Our man has no childhood he can bear to remember." It was only lies that enabled him to survive, constantly moving from place to place, maintaining a show more distance from others, as one by one other members of his family vanish or die.

All of this is narrated in a completely matter of fact way, with a complete absence of judgment, which makes it all quite chilling. Clearly, to survive physically, the psyche is irreparably damage.

"She and I had to get used to the idea we were quite alone. Tania and Maciek against the world. This was not an easy lesson to learn but probably the world would beat it into our heads." show less

Begley loves to write about the 60-plus-year-old man, usually of considerable means, getting it on with a 25-year-old girl. He does it in the first two Schmidt books and he does it here in Mistler's Exit. His other penchant is to chat in considerable detail about business deals, or legal cases, or real estate. His characters are big time materialists who probably vote Republican but who are nice enough so that you can't tell. They are used to dinner parties and servants and polo and the show more club. They enjoy their flings; they are men of the old school after all. And let us not forget cocktail hour, with it's irreplaceable martini. They have all material aspects of their life worked out to a fare thee well. Yet into this world of hyper-planning and monied perfection steps travail and trepidation. Humans can never be free of it, strive though they might. In the first two Schmidt books it appears in the form of a recently deceased wife, who was a paragon of family life, the social glue that held it together, and a daughter so foolish and unknowing in her life choices that one wonders if there wasn't some switch made among the bassinets at the hospital. Still reading. show less

A very familiar story in some ways-a coming-of-age story among the privileged as old as Fitzgerald. Three Harvard roommates from very different backgrounds seek to reinvent themselves and to belong. It's the Fifties and Harvard is not a very admirable place-snobbish, anti-semitic, and small-minded. The story centers on the efforts of Polish-Jewish war refugee Henry to make it in the WASP world as observed by one of the roommates, Sam. This book is well-written and engaging, despite the show more rather dated setting. The main female character, who is the focus of Henry's ambitions, does not seem real-her decisions make little sense, or are at least not well-explained. There are some other odd plot and character choices. Still, this is a book that draws you in and stays with you. show less

The setting here is very, one might say supremely, bourgeois. Albert Schmidt, newly widowed, recently retired from a cutthroat Manhattan law firm, is fully fitted out with all the appurtenances of great material success. The circles in which he moves are peopled by the very rich and often famous. Six months after his wife's death his daughter, Charlotte, announces her engagement to Jon Riker. Riker, a former mentee, is disliked by Schmidt for numerous reasons. One reason being that he's a show more Jew. More objectionable to Schmidt, however, is that Riker has knowingly undermined him at the firm where he no longer works. Schmidt has lost his beloved wife, Mary, and now he is losing his daughter to a grasping young man devoid of the romantic sensibilities that he most cherishes. Schmidt feels himself to be a radical truth teller, yet much of his "commentary" he must repress if he is not to alienate those around him. One wonders how he has done it. One wonders how he has managed to be successful. Interpersonal relationships are so key to the high-brow kind of law he once practiced, yet they also annoy him terribly. The answer of course is Mary. Often we hear Schmidt say something like "Mary would have managed it so well." And our sense is of his wife coming along behind him setting matters to rights. There are improbable sex scenes--two sixty-plus men with 20 year old girlfriends--yet somehow Begley carries them off. Certainly, the fact that both men are very rich makes the liaisons more plausible than they would be otherwise. I generally abhor all descriptions of coitus in print. Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater is to my mind full of such repulsive writing. Begley's method however is defter and almost without vulgarity. I haven't quite figured out how he does it. I suppose one could say that Begley writes about territory already covered by John Updike and Philip Roth. Yet Begley's style is distinctive, nothing like the other two writers, and his milieu is far more genteel. I absolutely adore this novel. It's my favorite of all the Begley novels I've read so far, including Wartime Lies, which is saying a lot. show less