On Green Dolphin Street: A Novel (Vintage International) - Softcover

Faulks, Sebastian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375704566 ISBN 13: 9780375704567

Publisher: Vintage, 2003

Synopsis

The bestselling author of Birdsong and Charlotte Gray delivers an enthralling, vibrantly evocative novel set in America in 1960, when the country stood poised between the paranoia of the Cold War and the ebullience of the New Frontier.

Faulks' heroine is Mary Van der Linden, a pretty, reserved Englishwoman whose husband, Charlie, is posted to the British embassy in Washington. One night at a cocktail party Mary meets Frank Renzo, a reporter who has covered stories from the fall of Dienbienphu to the Emmett Till murder trial in Mississippi. Slowly, reluctantly, they fall in love. Their ensuing affair, in all its desperate elation, plays out against a backdrop that ranges from the jazz clubs of Greenwich Village to the smoke-filled rooms of the Kennedy campaign. A romance in the grand tradition that is also a neon-lit portrait of America at its apogee, On Green Dolphin Street is Sebastian Faulks at the peak of his powers.

About this title

Review:

Fans will recognise Sebastian Faulks' focus on characterisation, historical context and the emotional power of his narrative in his new novel, "On Green Dolphin Street". Yet, in tone and setting, the story of one woman's attempt to face down death in the Cold War years marks a new departure for this bestselling novelist.

It's 1959 and the presidential battle between Kennedy and Nixon is heating up. Just as the country stands between two men so does Mary van der Linden, the wife of a British embassy employee in Washington and lover of political newspaper reporter Frank Renzo. All three are damaged by their experiences of war; death and decay are everywhere: through the men's memory of war, Mary's dying mother, van der Linden's declining health and the readers' knowledge that in only a few short years Kennedy will be dead and Nixon disgraced.

Previously, Faulks has described in bloody detail the horrors of the trenches and the brutality of the battlefield. Here he comments on the hollowness and politics of war and the human cost. With the personal mirroring the political so closely, the inevitability of the doomed love affair at the centre of the novel hardly inspires one to great heights of empathy. Consequently, the characters' fervour often falls flat:

"He raked his fingers through her hair, down to the skull, as his body filled hers. All the way, he thought, I will go all the way, till I find her; and with her head between his hands he too let out a cry, because he felt pity for her soul."

Faulks, whose previous novels have included bestsellers Birdsong and Charlotte Gray, has the capacity to sweep his readers up in his historical sagas and excels in his unflinching treatment of war. Unfortunately, the switch here from the battlefield to the political arena is not as compelling and, considering he is writing about one of the most exhilarating periods in US history and its most exciting city--New York (something Douglas Kennedy captured far more successfully in The Pursuit of Happiness), On Green Dolphin Street simply does not leap to the same heights as his earlier novels. --Alex Freeman

Review:

"A romance full of luminous insights, brimming with feeling and paced to perfection. . . . No contemporary author writes with more power, more eloquent simplicity." -San Francisco Chronicle

"Smart, well-wrought . . . a tenderly orchestrated love story. . . . everything an old-fashioned novel is supposed to do. . . . It will provoke and linger." -Chicago Tribune

"Faulks is an exquisite observer. . . . The characters inhabit a setting so exotic and vivid, so correct in all its details, that it floods them with animating light." -Newsday

"When passion erupts, Faulks is equal to the task. His prose gets it just right. . . . He has given us three very real, immensely appealing people." -The Washington Post Book World

"[A] thoughtful love story [and] a melodic mood piece." -The Oregonian

"Faulks has given us immensely appealing people, and only the hardhearted can fail to respond to their experiences with sympathy." -New York Post

"[A] vivid novel of New York. . . . Seductive and radiant prose. . . . Faulks captures beautifully the cadence of the United States 40 years ago." -Rocky Mountain News

"Exquisite. . . . Tragic. . . . [Faulks] displays to good advantage his considerable powers in describing the story's various landscapes." -The Seattle Times

"Faulks' achievement is that he renders the period and places so convincingly that they become intimately familiar." -Daily News (New York)

"Fans of Faulks . . . will find plenty of period atmosphere on which to hang their snap-brimmed fedoras." -People

"This wonderful novel . . . makes being a grown-up seem enviable, stylish, seductive. . . . A joyous book with a glow of pleasure." -Book

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0375704566
• ISBN 13: 9780375704567
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368