& SONS by David Gilbert (fiction)

I enjoyed this book; I like the writing, and I especially liked the recognizable setting in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.  Explaining the plot is not easy without giving away the climax of the novel, and there a number of characters with their own stories.  The novel largely focuses on one family, the Dyers, and opens with the funeral of Charlie Topping, the childhood friend of Andrew Dyer, a celebrated author.  Andrew Dyer has a cult following, a la J. D.Salinger, even to his sobriquet, A. D. Dyer.  His reputation rests mainly on his novel “Ampersand,” which won him the Pulitzer Prize and 50 years later is still being published. Chapters are introduced with letters from Dyer to Charlie from day camp and beyond.  They remained best friends through childhood, summer camp, their days at Exeter Academy and into old age.  Dyer’s novel has a lot to do with their days at Exeter, and this crops up throughout the book.  Philip Topping, Charlie’s son, newly divorced and a lost soul, narrates the story and is privy to all events even into the minds of the characters.  It works perfectly from a reader’s point of view.

Dyer, not surprisingly, is absent to his children, spending most of his time barricaded in his office writing.  His two older sons, Richard a former addict who has turned counsellor, and Jamie a free spirited documentary film maker who has drifted through life, are immersed in their own stories and arrive on the scene only when summoned by Dyer who is convinced he is dying.  Dyer and their mother divorced after 31 years of marriage when he had an affair which resulted in the birth of a third son, Andy who is now a teenager.  It is important to Dyer, for reasons the reader will discover, that he exacts a promise from his elder sons to look after Andy when Dyer passes on.  This family reunion orchestrated by Dyer is awkward to say the least.  His first wife, settled in a second marriage and living in Connecticut, is also asked to attend to the narcissistic “dying” man.

Readers familiar with Central Park and the museums of the East Side, will find much that is recognizable.  The setting adds to the enjoyment of the novel.  Gilbert is an accomplished writer who spins a good tale.  I recommend this novel to all readers.