About Schmidt: A Novel
From AwardAnnals
| Book: | About Schmidt: A Novel |
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| Author: | Louis Begley |
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| Publisher: | Random House Inc |
Charlotte, once the flower of all her father’s hopes, and the sole beneficiary of the best of everything he could provide, has matured into a banal yuppie, only too willing to apply her peerless education to work in public relations. And now a desperate quarrel divides them: Charlotte announces her intention to marry a man Schmidt cannot approve of, for reasons he can scarcely admit—even to himself. As the beleaguered father gropes his way out of the corners he is forever backing himself into, he finds the possibility of regeneration, perhaps even happiness, in a new love the old “Schmidtie” could not have imagined.
Set in the Hamptons and Manhattan, infused with black humor and startling eroticism, Louis Begley’s fourth novel casts a cold, pitiless eye on a class once-ascendant on the eastern seaboard as it is pushed aside by those whose fortunes are rising. About Schmidt is a meditation on loneliness and on the power of romance to unlock the most impenetrable recesses of the heart; it brilliantly enlarges Begley’s exploration of the tragic themes that haunt his earlier works.
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Reviews
Amazon.com
Albert Schmidt is a retired lawyer who misses his recently deceased wife, has an unhealthy diet, is a mild anti-Semite and owns a nice home in the Hamptons he feels compelled to offer to his daughter as a wedding present. Said daughter, Charlotte, is a yuppie in all the worst ways. She handles public relations for tobacco companies, doesn’t want the house in the Hamptons, and is about to marry a buttoned-up Jewish lawyer. The conflict takes off from there in this finely told tale of retirement, inheritance, and death.
Related works
Warren Schmidt (Nicholson) is about to taste a not so sweet slice of life. When he retired, he and his wife Helen had big plans, but an unexpected twist changed everything. Now, all of Schmidt’s attention is focused his daughter’s upcoming wedding to a loser waterbed salesman. From meeting hippie parents to sponsoring a Tanzanian foster child, Schmidt embarks on a search for answers…and discovers that life is full of trick questions.
