A Master at Work

How can an author create a character who is completely unsympathetic but completely fascinating? Shouldn't I eventually have gotten fed up with an amoral, cold-blooded, manipulative conniver with the unlikely name of Undine Spragg? Not when the author is as talented as the inestimable Edith Wharton. Her heroine Lily Bart in “House of Mirth” paid dearly for her poor decisions, but in The Custom of the Country Wharton goes down another path.

The book opens with the exclamation “Undine Spragg – how can you?”, and there were many times while reading this book that I felt the same way. Undine has dragged her nouveau riche parents from the midwestern hinterlands of Apex City to New York City so she can advance into high society, and although she has her share of missteps she slowly climbs the ladder. But each time she achieves a new rung her horizon broadens, and she catches sight of her next goal. A woman's road to advancement in society was through an advantageous marriage, and Undine acquires and discards husbands in New York and Paris in much the same way as she does her expensive dresses and hats.

Each time I would think that Undine was about to get her comeuppance she would execute an unexpected pivot, leaving spouses, friends and even her own child foundering in her wake, and sail on to another success. Wharton has a keen eye for the foibles of the rich and for the customs of American and European society. She has created a character who is memorable, if not admirable, and thoroughly entertaining.

A Thriller in Paris

A thriller set in Paris involving a clothing designer, an art dealer and an independent filmmaker – sounds like an entertaining read, doesn't it? And it was. Ted Mooney's The Same River Twice sets the plot in motion on page one as Odile, a French fashion designer looking for extra cash and perhaps a little excitement, smuggles Soviet era May Day flags out of Moscow for an enterprising art dealer. She neglects to tell her her husband Max about the caper, but after all he's busy with his mid-life crisis and his cinéma vérité about a young couple restoring a houseboat on the Seine. What's the harm?

As you can probably guess, complications ensue. The story has classic thriller elements – an enigmatic Russian businessman, a couple of truly malevolent thugs, a mysterious firebombing, not one but two beautiful, calculating young women, even an ecstasy party in the sewers of Paris.

But unlike in most thrillers, there's more going on than just a fast-moving plot. Mooney creates some three-dimensional characters who do not fall easily into 'good guy/bad guy' categories. They are far more cerebral and self-reflective than standard thriller types, and they examine such weighty questions as the meaning of love and the importance of art, even as they dodge thugs and plot escapes through the streets of Paris.

There are plenty of plot twists, and on reflection some of them may have been a little forced, but I enjoyed the ride.

Flight to Paris

If you're a reader who needs to like and admire the main characters in the novels you choose, I recommend that you skip Beat by Amy Boaz. On the other hand, if you're prepared to suspend your disapproval in order to follow the story of flawed, unlikeable but undeniably interesting characters you might enjoy it.

Frances, an unhappily married woman from suburban New York, has abandoned her husband and toddler son and fled to Paris with her seven-year-old daughter Cathy. She is fleeing the disastrous ending of her love affair with Joseph, a New-Agey, self important older man who translates Sanskrit love poems and teaches at the hilariously named Diamondcutter Institute of Unformed Conceptions in Boulder, Colorado. In flashbacks we learn that Frances, whose marriage is in such disarray that her husband Harry sleeps in a shed he has built in their yard, met Joseph at a wedding reception and was immediately smitten. Blithely ignoring the fact that Joseph was already living with a woman, the formidable Arlene Manhunter, a famous Beat poet and founder of the Institute, she began a frantic love affair with him, flying cross country to spend passionate weekends on the mountain trails and in the Boulder Quality Inn. And as the flashbacks unfold we learn that Arlene is not a woman to be trifled with.

But now Frances is in Paris, trying to entertain her daughter, sort out her life, earn enough money to afford increasingly shabby hotel rooms, and deal with a mysterious man who seems to be following her. Told in the first person, the prose is sometimes dreamlike and poetic as Frances looks back on the events that have brought her to Paris. But there is also an undercurrent of suspense, since the final events in the affair are revealed slowly and obliquely. Frances is not great at accepting responsibility or recognizing her own faults. Fortunately she has a seven-year-old daughter who is good at dragging her into reality, and Boaz's mother/daughter dialogues seem fresh and true. Even though I was sometimes annoyed by Frances' self-justifying explanations for her behavior, I was engrossed in the story (great descriptions of Paris) and impressed with Boaz's ability to weave the past and present together in a compelling narrative.