Smiley, a gifted novelist of family-relations (Born Blind, At
Paradise Gate), goes murkily astray this time - in a Manhattan
murder-mystery that probes, with talky stiffness, the
inter-relations among an unappealing group of old Minnesota college
friends, now all early-30s New Yorkers. (Not unlike The Big Chill
set-up, but without the charm.) Denny Minehart and Craig Shellady,
brother-like leaders of a not-quite-famous rock band, are found
dead in the apartment they've shared for years with Denny's
longtime lover, boutique-manager Susan Gabriel. The shocked
discoverer of the bodies: Susan's best friend Alice Ellis -
librarian, ex-wife of poet/prof Jim, and the novel's moody heroine.
Whodunit? Was it another band-member, druggie Noah Mast, whose wife
was sleeping with the charismatic, volatile Craig? Did something go
wrong with a cocaine-selling deal arranged by another old pal,
homosexual sound-man Ray? Or was the killer one of the many other
people who had keys to the Denny/Craig/Susan apartment? Alice, a
quiet type uncomfortable at the center of the ensuing tensions,
mulls these possibilities, raking over past relationships - often
in numbing conversations with strong, glamorous Susan. ("Well,
doesn't all of this seem weird to you? The patterns of our lives
formed twelve years ago! And they didn't basically change until
now!") Alice also finds time to fall in love - cute talk, earnest
sex - with botanist/neighbor Henry, even if (for unconvincing
reasons) she can't bear to tell him about the murders. But then,
while Noah is indeed arrested, Alice suddenly, intuitively knows
that Susan committed the murders. ("Nonetheless, Alice knew that
her adoration of her friend, and her anticipation of lasting,
comfortable intimacy was greater than ever.") So this disturbing
knowledge will mess up the Henry relationship. . . until a
longwinded finale (Susan stalks Alice, Susan confesses), paves the
way for a tinny, happy fadeout. Smiley extracts a few shrewd
effects from the quiet, naturalistic approach to violence and
grief: there's ironic, credible emphasis on what everybody eats and
wears. Her prose is often stylish, thoughtful. But, unlike Barn
Blind and At Paradise Gate, this novel is layered with artificial
situations and implausible motivations - from Alice's tortured
friendships to Susan's much-belabored murder motive (which relates
to the undeveloped theme of the rock band's non-celebrity).
Moreover, Smiley doesn't seem to know this world first-hand:
details and dialogue lack authentic edges. A blurry, ambitious
cluster of themes, then, never coming into focus - or rising above
the murder-melodrama format. (Kirkus Reviews)
This novel tells the story of a group of six friends whose close
and longstanding relationship begins to fall apart when two of them
are brutally murdered. Suspicion falls on all of them as their
infidelities and lies begin to come to the surface.
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