January 18, 2010
Leonard Lessing, the British protagonist of Crace's surprisingly bad 10th novel (after The Pesthouse
), has Walter Mitty–like dreams of being a revolutionary that are invariably short-circuited by his fear of making a disturbance. In 2006, Leonard, while in Austin, Tex., to reconnect with ex-flame Nadia, is bullied into assuming the role of activist by Maxie, the founder of Snipers Without Bullets, who is living with Nadia and who has gotten her pregnant. Though Maxie appalls Leonard, he nevertheless halfheartedly takes part in an “action” against Laura Bush that leads to Nadia's arrest and her daughter, Lucy, being born in prison. Eighteen years later, Leonard sees a news story about Maxie, who has taken a British family hostage. While gawking at the proceedings, Leonard runs into Lucy and gets drawn, once again, into a cockeyed scheme that begins Leonard's unlikely reunion with Nadia and a partial, ironic fulfillment of his dream of being an iconic radical. Unfortunately, Crace's novel is held hostage by the listlessness that emanates from chickenhearted Leonard and the embarrassing stereotypes that clutter many of the scenes, especially those set in Texas. This is a feeble effort for a novelist of Crace's stature.
February 15, 2010
In this near-future novel, British author Crace (The Pesthouse, 2007, etc.) examines the meaning of courage for one jazz musician.
As a young tenor sax player, Leonard Lessing alternated among composing, gigging and political activism. In 2006, he followed fellow activist Nadia from England to Austin, Texas, believing they might have a future together. Fat chance. Nadia had already hooked up with Russian-American Maxie Lermon, a violence-prone faux-leftist who corralled Leonard into a three-person anti-Bush demo to prove his manhood. Maxie was disabled, Nadia arrested; Leonard, highly principled but too well-mannered for the barricades, fled the scene. Where Leonard could prove himself was onstage. Years later, in England, his quartet stranded by bad weather, he played a gig alone for a full house and a radio audience. His performance was a triumph."Valiant," said an unknown audience member, Francine, who would become his wife. Crace begins his story in 2024; Leonard and Francine have been married nine years. Suddenly, Maxie re-enters Leonard's life. He's in the news for having taken some hostages in a nearby town to protest an upcoming summit. Aside from that long Texas flashback, the novel focuses on Leonard's bumbling attempts to defuse the crisis, with the help of Maxie's 17-year-old daughter Lucy. For an author much respected for his groundbreaking work, this is a surprisingly conventional story, one that leaves us with a nagging feeling that Crace hasn't fully engaged with his theme. Leonard is a dreamer; his favorite fantasy is fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War. Maxie is a brutal man of action; but in making him a loud-mouthed bore, hasn't Crace stacked the deck? Lucy is vibrant (she has her own reckless adolescent courage), but the older women, Nadia especially, are sketchy. The near-future setting is little more than an embellishment.
Though Crace is never dull, nothing else catches fire like that wonderful description of Leonard's solo gig.
(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)
February 15, 2010
This novel takes place around the year 2024, but not much seems different, except that there are more surveillance cameras around, and television and the Internet are somewhat more sophisticated. There's a hostage situation in a small town in England, evidently in protest of an upcoming governmental meeting, and Leonard Lessing, a jazz saxophonist watching it on TV, realizes that he knows one of the perpetrators. In 2006, they had both been involved with the same woman in Austin, TX, and took part in a political protest of sorts at an event where Laura Bush was appearing. Leonard, who has been on a kind of sabbatical from his jazz career and also in a marital limbo, is moved to cooperate with the police. Reaching the scene of the siege, Leonard meets the daughter of the perpetrator, and they hatch a convoluted scheme to help resolve the standoff. Later, Leonard's wife joins in as a bid to improve their relationship. VERDICT Leonard can be an annoying protagonist, and the plot strains credibility at times. But the writing is excellent, and the story moves along with a seductive force. Another fine work from the author of "Being Dead". [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 12/09.]Jim Coan, SUNY Coll. at Oneonta
Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
March 1, 2010
As a tenor saxophone player, Leonard Lessing is a risk-taker, a ferocious improviser who blows his horn with passion and conviction. As a political activist, however, he is more tentative, too civil and reasonable and too readily embarrassed to be truly militant. And while Lessing is a man of extreme principles, hesitantly held, Maxie Lermon is loud and volatile, and quick to the punch. When Lessing recognizes Lermon as the leader of a gang that has taken hostages, he recalls an incident that took place years earlier when he last saw the charismatic Lermon and was persuaded to help infiltrate and disrupt a speech by the First Lady at a book fair in Austin, Texas. Now on the eve of his fiftieth birthday, Lessing finds himself drawn into the hostage affair, attempting to prove to himself that he still has some fire left and is not a sofa socialist, as his wife, Francine, has called him. Crace sensitively depicts a middle-aged man coming to terms with the choices he has made, missed opportunities and all.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)