About Schmidt (Ballantine Reader s Circle)

Description

"A fine new novel... The great pleasure of reading Louis Begley [is] his exceptional literary intelligence."
The New York Times Book Review

"Begley again demonstrates that he can reveal the complexities of society and personality with a clear eye and graceful style... Morethan meets the requirements of graceful fiction."
Time

Proud, traditional, and impeccably organized, Albert Schmidt is a button-down lawyer of the old school.  But now, after years of carefulmanagement, his life is slowly unraveling.  His beloved wife has recently died.  He stumbles--or is he being pushed?--into earlyretirement.  And his daughter, his only child, is planning to marry a man Schmidt cannot approve of, for reasons he can scarcely admit, even to himself.  As Schmidt gropes for resolutions, he finds unexpected hope in an intense passion that comes out of the blue.

Set in the Hamptons and Manhattan, infused with black humor and startling eroticism, About Schmidt is both a meditation on lonelinessand on the power of romance to unlock the most impenetrable recesses of the heart.

"Comical, tough, unsparing; it is as if Louis Auchincloss had exchanged the kid gloves for brass knuckles... Interesting and nervy."
The Washington Post Book World

"A powerful story of a man s fall from grace... The Remains of the Day come[s] to mind."
Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Stunning."
Los Angeles Times Book ReviewAlbert 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.