& Sons

Summary (from the publisher): The funeral of Charles Henry Topping on Manhattan’s Upper East Side would have been a minor affair (his two-hundred-word obit in The New York Times notwithstanding) but for the presence of one particular mourner: the notoriously reclusive author A. N. Dyer, whose novel Ampersand stands as a classic of American teenage angst. But as Andrew Newbold Dyer delivers the eulogy for his oldest friend, he suffers a breakdown over the life he’s led and the people he’s hurt and the novel that will forever endure as his legacy. He must gather his three sons for the first time in many years—before it’s too late.

So begins a wild, transformative, heartbreaking week, as witnessed by Philip Topping, who, like his late father, finds himself caught up in the swirl of the Dyer family. First there’s son Richard, a struggling screenwriter and father, returning from self-imposed exile in California. In the middle lingers Jamie, settled in Brooklyn after his twenty-year mission of making documentaries about human suffering. And last is Andy, the half brother whose mysterious birth tore the Dyers apart seventeen years ago, now in New York on spring break, determined to lose his virginity before returning to the prestigious New England boarding school that inspired Ampersand. But only when the real purpose of this reunion comes to light do these sons realize just how much is at stake, not only for their father but for themselves and three generations of their family.

 

Review: When reclusive, best-selling author A.N. Dyer is asked to give the eulogy for his childhood friend Charlie Topping, it spurs him to gather his three sons and attempt to tie up loose ends in both his personal and professional life. The events of the following week as the Dyer sons Richard, Jamie, and Andy spend time with their aging, and possibly delusional father, and reminisce on what it meant to be the son of the famous author of Ampersand, a classic of teenage angst, are documented by Charlie's son Philip Topping. Like his father, Philip finds himself caught up in the swirl of the Dyer family, although his presence isn't necessarily welcome or appreciated.

 

Philip as a narrator was an interesting choice. The tie between the Topping and Dyer family, especially at this advanced age of the original friends, is tenuous at best, and seems to have been for a long time: the "Dyer-Topping friendship was based on those early years when action trumped language" rather than a profound connection (12). Philip seems to force his presence on the Dyer family, eagerly accepting an invitation to stay at the Dyer apartment, an invitation that was clearly a empty nicety rather than a sincerely extended invite. According to his own description, Philip seems to have an unhealthy obsession with the Dyers and seems to identify more with their family than with his own.  For instance, he feels compelled to knock on the author's office door, even after being told he doesn't want to be disturbed, leading Philip to say, "the temptation to knock was undone when I touched the door and sensed the heat of my own infatuation" (98). Philip always seems to be skulking about, the unwelcome voyeur of the Dyer family drama.

 

Perhaps most aggravating was that despite being a third person narration by a character, Philip functions as an omniscient narrator, somehow able to witness events, conversations, and relay thoughts that no individual would have access to and sometimes detailing events that occur simultaneously as Philip is off elsewhere. I don't recall having ever seen a narrator function in quite this way before and I was unable to suspend my disbelief enough to find Philip as narrator convincing. Beyond this, I was also aggravated by Philip's habit of speaking directly to the reader, with phrases such as "before charges of narrative fraud are flung in my direction, let me defend myself and tell you [...]" (20). In sum, Philip seems like a minor character who has somehow overreached his place and ended up telling a story that isn't his to tell. Perhaps this is his revenge for the A. N. Dyer having stolen from his father's life for his novels.

 

Additionally, I found this novel overwrought and filled with long-winded asides about random characters that would last for pages on end and then would never be referred to again. In short, it felt as if Gilbert was trying too hard to write in a high brow way and the result is a dense, convoluted story that drags on much longer than it needed to. This is only occasionally punctuated by brief bursts of inspired lines with descriptions such as "these former child stars seemed swollen with age, as if stung by a very large bee" (89). Or this enlightened description of childhood friends: "Parents and children are different. They help us measure our existence, like the clock on the wall or the watch on our wrist. But old friends carry with them a braided constant, part and whole, all the days in the calendar contained in a glance" (123).

 

I did enjoy the meta aspect of one of the main characters being a famous author, as well as the impact of the famous novel on the characters. The allusion to both the Dyer novel's title, Ampersand, but also a clever hidden reference to Dyer's initials of A.N.D. in the title of the book was clever. While this novel is supposed to be about a family coming together, it's more about a rupture or the permanent fractures that continue to widen in the Dyer family, old wounds that can never be healed.

 

Stars: 3