Indiscretion by Charles Dubow
| Indiscretion by Charles Dubow | |
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| Category: Literary Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Kenzie Millar
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| Summary: When Claire meets Harry and Maddy Winslow at a party in the Hamptons with her boyfriend Clive, she can’t help but compare. Where he is brash and fake, they are real, beautiful and charming. They draw people to them, including Claire. She is determined to become a part of their world, with little thought for the consequences. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 400 | Date: July 2013 |
| Publisher: Blue Door | |
| ISBN: 9780007501304 | |
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Charles Dubow's debut novel promises to be a modern day Great Gatsby. It too is set amongst the rich and famous outside New York, it too is narrated by a character seemingly on the outside, Maddy's childhood friend Walter.
Harry and Maddy have much more charm than the characters in Gatsby. There are other reasons, aside from their wealth, that make it understandable why characters such as twenty-something Claire want to be around them. They have created a cocoon of honesty and home-comforts in the middle of a world that is usually filled with self-centered snobs. Claire attends one of their parties and instantly wants to be one of them, part of the world they have created. She falls in love with Harry, who is an author who recently won the National Book Award. She falls in love with Maddy, who is a generous wife and mother and an amazing cook. And she falls in love with their son, Johnny. This is completely understandable to narrator, Walter, who has spent his life in love with the same people.
As Walter makes obvious from the beginning of the story, Claire’s acceptance into this world comes at great cost. Choices and mistakes are made. This is a story of people succumbing to temptation, despite already having what seems to be a perfect life.
I enjoyed the way the characters' choices and decisions were described. Despite being a world I am not part of, I felt like I could understand why they were doing what they were doing for the first three parts of the book. After this I think some of the events and decisions were not quite as well thought through (by the author, not the characters). I am also not a hundred percent sold on the decision to make Walter the narrator. Personally, I think it takes something away from the book. Yes, it is something different. But I always think if you’re going to do something different, there has to be a reason, you have to earn it. And I’m just not sure the story did earn it. There was no particular reason to have the story narrated by Walter that I could see. Apart from this, having Walter as the narrator also kept jolting me out of the story. An omniscient narrator can tell me what different characters are thinking and feeling at different times, but how can a character within the story? Dubow did give explanations as to how Walter got some of his information, but I'm just not sure it went far enough and it took me out of the action several times.
My main issue with this book is that while I enjoyed the writing and I enjoyed the characters, having Walter as the narrator took away from this enjoyment. I think the story would have worked better with a simple narrative style, so that the characters - who are all interesting, with individual motivations - could have shined through. I craved more than Walter's view of Maddy. I wanted to know more about Claire.
The theme of the novel, temptation, is individual and personal as the novel makes clear. I think this kind of narrative style will also be personal. The writing of this story is superb, so for that reason alone is worth recommending. And the experimental narrative will certainly by enjoyable for a lot of people. Just call me old-fashioned.
If you haven't read it already, this book has to be compared to The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald. Both are well worth a read, but for different reasons - despite their similarities.
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