Falling in love and marrying the daughter of a North London cabdriver, American-born Gordon finds his life regularly trodden upon by his eccentric mother and takes his bride on a delayed honeymoon to Venice, where the truth about their dysfunctional pasts comes to light. A first novel. Reader's Guide available. Reprint.
Gordon Garrety has spent his life traveling the world to visit art museums with his mother, Maureen, who considers herself an art historian. In fact, she is a self-absorbed, irresponsible mother who uses people to fund her self-indulgent lifestyle. When Gordon falls in love and marries Annie, his shallowness is reflected in their relationship: he excuses his indecisiveness by explaining that "the world passes at such a rate it is almost impossible to know anything for certain." When Gordon and Annie spend their belated honeymoon in Venice with Maureen and her new suitor, Maureen's insanity surfaces in a brutal act of cruelty against Annie. Gordon's inability to come to his wife's aid destroys his marriage but shows him the spiritual and emotional damage incurred by his attachment to an overbearing mother. This debut is a well-written and insightful-yet disturbing-study of a mother and her son set inside the genteel world of art and good manners. Recommended for most collections.-David A. Berone, Univ. of New Hampshire Lib., Durham Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
The bond between mother and son becomes a stranglehold in Haythe's debut novel, an elaborate, unsettling character study that uses Venice as the setting for a strange honeymoon. Shy, sheltered Gordon Garraty spends most of his childhood traveling with his eccentric mother, Maureen, a dilettante who is constantly hopping around Europe to work on an art guide book that remains in a perpetual state of near-completion. Maureen's flamboyant dominance of her son leaves Gordon a bit of a blank slate, until he heads off to college in London and meets a sly, coy waitress named Annie who inexplicably breaks off her engagement to another man and agrees to marry Gordon after a disturbingly brief courtship. The unlikely union seems to surprise both bride and groom, and Gordon's rather tepid relationship with Annie comes completely unraveled when Maureen and her new fiancé, the over-tanned Gerhardt, invite the newlyweds on a trip to Venice. Haythe's prose is smooth and probing, and the narrative stakes rise when Annie hints at the possibility of incest between Maureen and Gordon after deciding to leave Venice early. But Haythe's focus on Maureen makes Gordon a shadowy, incomplete figure, and the novel's conclusion is more bizarre than climactic. Haythe shows promise as a stylist, but the combination of muddled climax and uneven character development hinders this otherwise impressive debut. (Apr.) Forecast: Fans of Patricia Highsmith will enjoy this noirish novel, with its European setting and cast of morally ambiguous characters. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Shopping Cart
