Frederick Barthelme

This book won't be for everyone. As other readers have pointed out, nothing happens. And then, just in case you miss the point, the characters have another coffee, or a scotch, take a walk around the block, reminisce about some long-closed restaurant, arrive back at their front door and then ... yep, still nothing happened. [return][return]This is as little unfair, although almost as much fun to write as it was to read Barthelme's beautifully crafted "conversations about nothing." On the show more surface, a LOT happens: the death toll begins to creep up toward double digits (if you count the confessions of historical incidents), the central character Wallace Webster returns home, often as not, to find neighbors' houses surrounded by police cars, lights flashing, and incident tape festooning their neatly cut lawns. The alpha-male and female members of a Home Owners' Association indulge in local politics (and what could be more bloodthirsty than that?) However, what happens doesn't seem to add up to much more than the stuff of everyday life. [return][return]Which, of course, is the whole point. So, one that is not for everyone. But I find that those small accumulations of "nothing" have lingered in my mind, since I finished the book a few days ago. And my assessment has crept up, too, half-star by half star, as I slowly realized that this is a book that I will come back to.[return][return]I do have one quibble: Wallace doesn't seem to me like a man in his mid-50s, forced into early retirement. His attitudes -- to pop-culture, to technology, to life in general -- all added up to someone much older. My father retired to Florida in his 80s, and his day to day routine of coffee, or a scotch, with friends, walks around the block, reminisces about long-closed restaurants, and light flirtations with neighboring widow-ladies, all seemed much more like Wallace than a man in his 50s. This grated, a little, but it was the only "off" note in an otherwise very enjoyable novel. show less

Welcome to consumer heaven

There Must Be Some Mistake: A Novel by Frederick Barthelme (Little, Brown and Company, $25).

Wallace Webster has been given an early retirement, and it’s left him at loose ends. He sleeps too much and drives around wasting gas when he’s not hanging out with women—his daughter, his exes, general women friends.While he’s frustrated and bored, he’s pretty normal.

Then, his neighbors start dying.

This murder mystery is the skeleton on which Frederick Barthelme show more hangs the flesh of his latest novel, There Must Be Some Mistake; the meaty part is all about the meaning of life and facing our mortality in the consumer’s heaven we call suburbia. But instead of taking a dismal view of life—though he does have some rather funny hits on pop culture—Barthelme’s protagonist is rather upbeat, with an attitude that is willing to take on whatever shows up next. It’s odd to call something set in this sunny, suburban world noir, but if Wallace were a bit more grizzled and pessimistic, that’s exactly what this would be.

With smart people saying smart and funny things—and a thoroughly post-modern ambiguous ending—There Must Be Some Mistake is an insightful slice of contemporary Americana.

Reviewed on Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com show less

To be completed and updated

No one captures the immediate world in all its banality, oppressive and coercive forces, and the unfortunate characters who must negotiate them while they pass through it as well as Barthelme. There is little certainty in the actions of Peter. He is unclear about so many things, whether its the quality of food in the supermarket or why he loves Lily, though he does, or how to parent Charles. Characters appear here and there with clarity, but you get the feeling its show more fraudulent. show less

Upgraded to 4 stars after some contemplation.

All the elements of a Barthelme novel are there, the trashy cultural motifs, the struggle to survive, the pop culture, more pop culture and always relationships lost or new ones found. Here we’re in a post hurricane Katrina universe: the destroyed landscape, the constant references to casinos that laid bare and impoverished well before it hit. Only Waveland felt a little tired, that the author peaked some time ago.

I still love Barthelme, even show more though this one got weaker than the last. No one sees the world quite like him, describes actions quite so deftly and precisely. I do love his exploration of muddle-headed thought processes: 



The were family and that meant something-or it might mean something, or in some cases under the right circumstances, if push came to shove, and with a little luck- well, theoretically, that mattered.



Let's face it, how many of us are truly clearer about anything than that. Doubt and confusion, are permanent states of being for Barthelme characters. Clarity is frightening, as is the domination of uptight values. People just want to do their best, struggle is perennial.

Every encounter with the landscape is a reminder that eighteen months later, nothing has improved, nothing was fixed. But somehow that means nothing much has changed much either - 'only browner' Vaughn says as his brother Newton arrives in town.

There's always that matter-of-factness in a Barthelme work. Characters only really get by, even in crisis whether personal or financial. So everything is about quotidian survival. But there’s some literary jackpots among all the coins slipped into the slot machine. The old lady in the burger place talks endlessly as Vaughn waits for his burger about her hamster named Teeny Weeny, while her husband is incapacitated at home all day, everything is positive for her, everything like that hamster, except when he gets trapped, the hamster doesn't like being trapped.

There are some poignant observations about poverty and wealth. Gail, Vaughn's recently divorced wife has family wealth, she is whimsical. So she got sick of Vaughn, and got rid of him. Then she wants him back, then she calls his brother, Newton, a successful dotcommer with nothing to do these days so they move to the north west together. Such episodes of privilege slip easily into the prose while everyone else struggles.

The prose is at times beautiful. There are some great moments; and sometimes tired prose. When written in the present, the prose is excellent, when introducing backstory, it sometimes struggled.

Waveland marks a crisis point in American life – like Hurricane Katrina – when writers go for newsworthy contemporary events, you know they’re showing a little wear and tear themselves. show less