Western alliances

Wilton Barnhardt

Book - 2023

"Salvador, the patriarch, runs one of Wall Street's biggest banks the summer before everything collapses; Roberto and Rachel, his two children, have never worked a day in their lives; and Lena, his ex-wife, is a scheming hypochondriac. Part travelogue, part epic family drama, the novel follows Roberto and Rachel across Europe as the two dilettantes come to terms with their father's choices and the repercussions of his actions. Oozing with his signature satire and biting wit, Barnhardt invites readers on a literary romp from an elegant Paris apartment to a hilariously-inept London hotel, ancient churches and crypts to gleaming Mediterranean coasts, hot dog stands in Providence, RI to the best places in Manhattan, and terrifyin...g encounters in the Serbian countryside to dangerous liaisons in Moscow, as two grown-up rich kids are forced to come of age at last. In Western Alliances Barnhardt he delivers an un-put-down-able saga examining privilege, loyalty, ambition, and what family members owe to one another"--

Saved in:

1st Floor Show me where

FICTION/Barnhard Wilton
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
1st Floor FICTION/Barnhard Wilton Checked In
Subjects
Genres
Humorous fiction
Domestic fiction
Historical fiction
Novels
Published
New York : St. Martin's Press 2023.
Language
English
Main Author
Wilton Barnhardt (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
388 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
ISBN
9781250090003
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Whom can a trust-fund baby trust, especially once the trust fund runs out? That's the question plaguing Roberto, son of cable-TV financial guru Sal Costa. He obviously can't trust his equally avaricious sister, Rachel, nor their hypochondriac mother, Sal's ex, Lena. And given his penchant for antiquities and art history, probably no one in the Eurotrash circles he frequents, either. When the financial upheaval of 2008 threatens to cut off virtually all their funding, Roberto, Rachel, and Lena become mired in the very high stakes game of one-upmanship required to master myriad legal wranglings necessary to continue living large. Reduced to cadging couches from whatever ex-lover or new romance will have him, Roberto nevertheless continues his dilettante's tour of the continent, all while scheming to ingratiate himself with Sal and cut his sister and mother out of the dwindling Costa economic empire. Fans of HBO's Succession will be attracted to the backstabbing and debauchery on gaudy display in Barnhardt's campy, steamy social satire.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review

Originally from Providence, RI, bond-market multimillionaire Sal has rubbed elbows with all sorts, including the Mafia, and then becomes a financial guru at a large Wall Street firm. His two children, Roberto and Rachel, have never had to work but instead travel throughout Europe, pretending to do research. Their spending has no limits, and they expect a substantial inheritance. Meanwhile, their mother, who is divorced from Sal, keeps trying to con money from him. When the 2008 financial collapse hits, neither she nor her children are prepared, finding themselves cut off from their accounts because they fail to follow Sal's advice about managing their money. As they flounder, mother and daughter scheme to beg, borrow, or steal money from Sal and/or Roberto. Meanwhile, Sal is made CEO of his company and brokers a deal with the government to save the organization, but just as things begin to settle down, tragedy strikes. VERDICT In a story perhaps too close to reality to be regarded as purely fun reading, Barnhardt (Lookaway, Lookaway) creates a biting and hilarious indictment of generational wealth and its effects. Any fiction reader would enjoy.--Joanna M. Burkhardt

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

An appealing hybrid of travelogue, dilettante's diary, family saga, exposé of the new international Capitalism of the Oligarchs, and the bedpost-notching of a sexual swashbuckler--set against the backdrop of the Wall Street collapse of 2008. Roberto Costa has never had to work. Son of Salvador, a Providence bond trader--turned--CNBC talking head--turned, lately, investment bank CEO, Bobby drifts through Europe, in parallel and in competition with his feckless sister, Rachel. He is a charmer, a gifted linguist, tall and handsome in addition to rich, and he bounces from city to city, conquest to conquest, taking notes for an always-in-its-early-stages magnum opus he sees as part Pepys, part Sebald, part guide to comparative linguistics. Bobby and Rachel are gluttons for all things old European, and they have a spirited rivalry when it comes to collecting places and relics, especially Romanesque architecture. Both are circled by hangers-on, users; chief among these is their shameless, amusing con woman mother, who's long since moved on from Salvador but not from the pursuit of his assets. The novel is lightly but deftly plotted; most of its joys have to do with bantering dialogue and with what Bobby calls his "Notebooks" project. His observations about history, culture, and especially language are great fun, and Barnhardt also excels, in the son's affectionate interactions with his father, at illustrating and glossing the 2008 crisis and the greed and skulduggery that caused it. (The Henry Miller part of all this, detailing the sexcapades of our blood flow--challenged hero, pale by comparison.) About two-thirds through, several swift, cleverly deployed plot devices put Bobby in possession of significant new resources, significant new moral ambiguities, and at last, nearing 40, in vague pursuit of a coming-of-age. The novel begins to morph into the one genre its man-child protagonist has never wanted any part of. A likable, smart, wide-ranging ramble, good fun for those who like novels not aimless but a little aim-resistant. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.