Union Atlantic

Mar 19, 2010 Stephanie Sun rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: dead-tree, alternating-close-3rd-person, obama, ironigelic-gay-teens

Union Atlantic has everything one could need from a contemporary novel, except for, perhaps, a sense of humor. Which isn't to say that it isn't a pleasurable read: it is. Just not exactly... satisfying.

It's also an exquisite pleasure to read Haslett's prose, not least because he knows when to flex his muscles: in conjuring up the romance of a New England summer; the romance of youth; the romance of a secret, old, and useless pain; and, of course, the romance of money, both kept safe and played w...more

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Aug 20, 2012 Abby rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2011

Adam Haslett is a talented writer. He has a gift for crafting beautiful sentences (that are easy to digest) and for depicting lush scenes of grandeur or beauty (that are easy to imagine). Based on this alone, Union Atlantic is a fun read.

The tale of a rags-to-riches banker with little to no scruples who is eventually taken down by the good manners and strong ethics of his Brahmin betters, Union Atlantic assigns villains and protagonists to the financial crisis.

Haslett has taken the trouble to re...more

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Jun 14, 2011 Vestal McIntyre added it

I love books that put me in the morally compromised position of rooting for a villain. In Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country, for example, we watch Undine Spragg, a creature of pure ambition and greed, as she goes through husband after husband in her search for wealth and status. She leaves in her wake a neglected son and a suicide. More than her downfall, though, I wanted to see her prevail. This phenomenon is old news, I suppose, considering fiendish scene-stealers from Milton's Satan t...more

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Sep 29, 2012 Larraine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Union Atlantic opens with the protagonist, Doug Fanning who witnesses his commanding officer fire on an Iranian fishing boat during the Gulf War, then covers it up quickly and - somewhat - efficiently. This first chapter sets the stage for the Fanning we meet a few years later who has been on a meteoric rise with a financial institution known as Union Atlantic. This once solid commercial bank has been turned into a global financial services conglomerate with a core that is so rotten, it is feste...more

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Jul 26, 2012 Ikebukuro rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Un roman à tiroirs et à clés, foisonnant et dense où les histoires de chacun se recoupent au fur et à mesure où se déroule le récit. Difficile de parler de l'histoire car au départ elle semble partir un peu dans tous les sens, on suit différents protagonistes même si le pivot central reste Doug Fanning.

Ce roman est en réalité une critique de la société américaine qui met en avant les dérives du système bancaire et spéculatif à outrance de ces dernières années. C'est d'ailleurs peut-être la parti...more Un roman à tiroirs et à clés, foisonnant et dense où les histoires de chacun se recoupent au fur et à mesure où se déroule le récit. Difficile de parler de l'histoire car au départ elle semble partir un peu dans tous les sens, on suit différents protagonistes même si le pivot central reste Doug Fanning.

Ce roman est en réalité une critique de la société américaine qui met en avant les dérives du système bancaire et spéculatif à outrance de ces dernières années. C'est d'ailleurs peut-être la partie du récit qui m'a la moins intéressée car un peu trop complexe à mon goût. N'étant pas une spécialiste des méandres financiers, cet aspect du roman est resté un peu confus et hermétique mais j'avoue que je n'ai pas non plus cherché à comprendre et j'ai un peu survolé les pages s'y rapportant. Je comprends les lecteurs qui pourraient trouver cette partie franchement rébarbative. Mais malgré la partie sur la finance et les systèmes boursiers, j'ai beaucoup aimé ce livre, particulièrement les relations qui se créent entre les différents personnages. On devine rapidement que l'on va avoir une lutte du pot de terre contre le pot de fer entre Charlotte et Doug mais franchement je n'ai pas boudé mon plaisir, avec une préférence pour les personnages de Charlotte, cette "vieille fille" (même si je n'aime pas ce terme), excentrique et entêtée, sûre de son bon droit et qui n'entend pas s'en laisser conter par ce jeune loup aux dents longues qui s'installe à côté de chez elle et Nate cet adolescent un peu paumé qui passe son temps entre des copains aussi désœuvrés que lui mais qui va à sa manière s'introduire chez Charlotte et ensuite chez Doug.

Le titre résume très bien le propos du livre car entre toutes ces histoires qui se croisent on finit par ne plus trop savoir de quelle intrusion parle le livre et finalement on s'aperçoit que "Les intrusions" aurait été un titre plus proche de la vérité, tous les personnages se retrouvent à un moment donné l'intrus de quelqu'un. Car l'intrusion c'est aussi cette villa outrancière qui se pose comme une verrue dans le paysage de Charlotte, c'est aussi Nate qui "visite" illégalement la villa de Doug et c'est Charlotte qui entre dans la vie de Doug à travers le procès qu'elle intente à la ville. Mais finalement la principale "Intrusion" n'est-elle pas celle de la peur de l'autre distillée insidieusement au coeur de l'Amérique après le 11 septembre ?

Un avis vraiment positif pour ce roman car j'ai aimé le propos du livre, les relations qui se créent entre les protagonistes mais surtout j'ai apprécié le style particulièrement brillant et incisif de l'écriture qui sert le propos décrit par l'auteur, une certaine vision de l'Amérique et de nos sociétés capitalistes qui prend tout son sens avec la crise économique que l'on subit. Une écriture pertinente au service des personnages et de leurs relations et un vrai talent pour décrire les relations humaines.(less)

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Dec 08, 2011 Al rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Union Atlantic,” Adam Haslett’s first novel, is the best fiction I’ve read to address the recent house of cards financial near-collapse on Wall Street. If that conjures up college nightmares of classes in economics theory, this novel couldn’t be further from that image. The clever plot brings a Katharine Hepburn-like retired school teacher and her fight to save her family’s long held lakefront Connecticut property into the story of an amoral trader who illegally (maybe) builds a McMansion next...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Phillip Kim rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. i am a banker turned writer who is finishing up a novel about banking in Asia. i therefore read this book with keen interest.

on the positive side:
- i was struck by how Adam Haslett's intelligence comes across in his writing. He is clearly a very thoughtful, broad- and deep- minded individual;
- much of the writing is lyrical and graceful, yet captivating;
- the characters were well developed, with diverse aspects of their personalities. they were not caricatures or one-dimensional;
- the dinner par...more

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Apr 21, 2011 Josh rated it 4 of 5 stars

Haslett's short story collection is the best I've ever read and this is his first novel. It has the same power to stun the reader with its emotional precision and the events still follow a classical yet totally credible and organic tragic structure. He still surprises you with meaningfulness. Nate and Charlotte were great characters. Doug was, well, less relate-able and Henry seemed a bit dull by comparison. I'll admit I haven't been an enthused reader lately, so that's a factor in my response....more

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Sep 10, 2010 Nick rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was skeptical. Yes, I had really, really loved his collection of short stories, You Are Not a Stranger Here. But in his NPR interview I heard the description of this novel and it had to do with banking. And all of those things that made our economy nearly collapse. Not that these things aren't important, but I generally don't understand them: swaps and trades and mortgage-backed securities and markets and exchanges.

Turns out that it is about that, but about a lot more than that as well. Like...more

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Jul 18, 2010 Jim Leffert rated it 4 of 5 stars

At its core, this is a novel about three well-drawn characters—a clash between two of them and their impact on a third, whose identity is still emerging. Doug Fanning is a driven young man, a military veteran and son of an alcoholic single mom, who is helping his boss, Jeffrey Holland, turn conservative Boston bank Union Atlantic into a money-making powerhouse through far-flung investments. He builds an outrageously-sized mansion in the suburb Finden (think Weston and Wellesley combined), and in...more At its core, this is a novel about three well-drawn characters—a clash between two of them and their impact on a third, whose identity is still emerging. Doug Fanning is a driven young man, a military veteran and son of an alcoholic single mom, who is helping his boss, Jeffrey Holland, turn conservative Boston bank Union Atlantic into a money-making powerhouse through far-flung investments. He builds an outrageously-sized mansion in the suburb Finden (think Weston and Wellesley combined), and in doing so, sets off the wrath of his neighbor, Charlotte Graves, a retired high school history teacher and spinster whose father originally donated the land to the town on which this monstrosity now sits. Douglas believes that rules shouldn’t matter; the assertion of power and what you can get away with are paramount; Charlotte believes that history exists to teach us lessons. She already got into trouble (pushed into retirement) because of this conviction. She also happens to have a bit of a psychosis going on, involving two pet dogs that preach at her in the voices of Cotton Mather and Malcolm X, respectively. Charlotte files a lawsuit aimed at voiding Doug’s title to the property in question.

The third major character, Nate Fuller, is a confused and searching teenager whose father committed suicide the year before. Nate is drawn to Charlotte for her energy and conviction but he also experiences stirrings of sexual attraction to Doug, which are fueled by his athletic good looks and manner, which suggest something of male dominance asserting power in American society. Doug and Charlotte each have a back story which helps enrich the narrative.

Some reviewers have criticized the way in which all the main characters are coincidentally linked—Charlotte’s brother Henry happens to be chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and therefore is a leading bank regulator. Holland, Doug’s boss, also lives in Finden and his teenage son is a buddy of Nate’s. This feature of the novel didn’t bother me—it turned the town of Finden into a small-scale version of the world at large. Moreover, popular historical novels and films are replete with close connections that are even more hokey--in Cabrera Infante’s screenplay, The Lost City, for example, one brother is strongly anti-Castro and the other is a leading figure in the revolution, while in Leon Uris’ novel Trinity, the young Catholic revolutionary falls in love with the headstrong daughter of a leading Protestant landowner--and lets not forget Luke, Obi, and Darth!
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Apr 29, 2010 Diane rated it 5 of 5 stars

Watching the Congressional hearings into Goldman Sachs made me appreciate the prescience of Adam Haslett's brilliant novel, Union Atlantic.

Written in the year before the economic collapse of 2009, Haslett's novel features a young gun investment banker, Doug Fanning, whom we first meet in 1988 when he is stationed on a US naval ship that is escorting Kuwaiti tankers through the Straits of Hormuz. Fanning sees an unidentified plane on his radar, and alerts his commander. A decision is made to fire...more Watching the Congressional hearings into Goldman Sachs made me appreciate the prescience of Adam Haslett's brilliant novel, Union Atlantic.

Written in the year before the economic collapse of 2009, Haslett's novel features a young gun investment banker, Doug Fanning, whom we first meet in 1988 when he is stationed on a US naval ship that is escorting Kuwaiti tankers through the Straits of Hormuz. Fanning sees an unidentified plane on his radar, and alerts his commander. A decision is made to fire upon the plane and 290 people lost their lives as their Iranian Airbus passenger jet was shot down by the Americans.

The incident gets covered up, as well as the fact that Fanning failed to tell his commander that the jet was ascending, not descending as the commander was told. This incident and its aftermath leads Fanning to become the kind of man who later sets in motion a financial disaster that threatens the U.S. banking system.

Fanning becomes a big success as an investment banker at Union Atlantic. He takes risks there as well, and as long as he produces big profits for the bank and in turn himself, he can cut all the corners he likes. His boss is willfully ignorant of Fanning's schemes.

When Fanning builds a huge McMansion next to property owned by Charlotte Graves, he underestimates her. The land was owned by her grandfather, and Charlotte believes his house is obscene. Charlotte, a retired teacher, is eccentric, slipping into insanity. She believes that her two dogs are the incarnated Malcolm X and Cotton Mather, and they frequently share their conflicting advice with Charlotte.

Charlotte ends up tutoring Nate, a teenage boy whose father recently committed suicide. Nate and his mother are barely existing together. He breaks into Fanning's home, and ends up in a dangerous sexual relationship with Fanning. Fanning wants Nate to help get Charlotte off his back, and he is willing to use Nate's vulnerability to get what he wants.

When a colleague working for Fanning runs a scheme that unravels, Charlotte brother Henry Graves, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, becomes involved in trying to keep this from ruining the entire entangled U. S. economy. (Hank Paulson, anyone?)

How Haslett weaves these stories together is a wonder. He doesn't write this novel, he crafts it. It took me along time to read this book because I frequently reread passages, they were that beautiful. Of Nate realizing that Charlotte needed him, he writes
These last many months the intuition of others' needs had become Nate's second nature, as if his father's going had cut him a pair of new, lidless eyes that couldn't help but see into a person such as this this: marooned and specter-driven.

His characters are vivid and complex. Nate is flailing about, wanting to be loved and willing to debase himself to do it. Charlotte is a genius, bordering on insane, and Fanning is amoral, sinking further into the morass.

It is astonishing that a fiction writer created this dialogue in 2008, when Henry the NY Fed Chair says to the CEO of Union Atlantic
"Let me start by saying that if you or your board is under the impression that Union Atlantic is too big to fail, you're mistaken. There's no question here of a bailout. If you go under, the markets will take a hit, but with enough liquidity in the system we can cut you loose. I hope you understand that." This, of course, was a bluff. Henry has already begun receiving calls from the Treasury Department.

This novel is one of the best books I have read this decade. The story is relevant and the characters are powerful. Haslett is a true craftsmen. If you like good fiction, this is a book you must read.
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Apr 08, 2010 Kenny rated it 3 of 5 stars

Sherman Alexie wrote in "Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" that good books give you boners. Union Atlantic should qualify under this criteria...and for its special shout outs to Williams College (page 125), Keats (203), Whitman (224), and a tiny photo of Kafka on the wall of a dorm room of a gay college student who just sounds cute (296) - "Alex had asked her what Nate's status was-gay or straight, available or taken" (295).

But (and this is a big but), the characters are so unlikable, e...more

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Mar 15, 2010 Karl Bemesderfer rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you take the Tom Wolfe of "Bonfire of the Vanities" and give him John Updike's gifts as a prose stylist, you get Adam Haslett. Haslett is as meticulous an observer of social mores as Claire Massoud, which is about as highly as I can praise any author, but whereas her prose often cuts to the bone it rarely soars. Haslett is capable of moments of surprising lyricism in a novel whose themes are international monetary finageling and a lawsuit about the ownership of a parcel of land. Here for exam...more

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Mar 07, 2010 Barbara rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a wide-ranging novel about the state of America in the months following 9-11. The main characters are Doug, an executive with the fictional Union Atlantic bank/conglomerate; Charlotte, the retired school teacher who resides next door to Doug's behemoth McMansion in Finden, MA; Henry, Charlotte's brother and a leader in a federal regulatory agency; and Nate, a high school student who is Charlotte's tutee and eventually Doug's lover. The author weaves two stories together with (mostly) bel...more This is a wide-ranging novel about the state of America in the months following 9-11. The main characters are Doug, an executive with the fictional Union Atlantic bank/conglomerate; Charlotte, the retired school teacher who resides next door to Doug's behemoth McMansion in Finden, MA; Henry, Charlotte's brother and a leader in a federal regulatory agency; and Nate, a high school student who is Charlotte's tutee and eventually Doug's lover. The author weaves two stories together with (mostly) believable cross-currents; i.e., the near collapse of Union Atlantic and the unsuccessful bid by Charlotte to rid Finden of the McMansion. These stories are framed, at the beginning and end of the novel, by two shorter stories, one set in the first Gulf War and the second occurring as the U.S. begins the invasion of Iraq. The main characters and stories successfully capture the sense of deterioration and despair that slowly overtook the country after the shock of 9-11, while the framing device sets those stories into the context of an America perpetually at war. "Doug couldn't sleep for watching the stuff . . . Watching the endless repetition of facts and speculation and probable lies, the consumption of which at least partially numbed the helplessness of seeing it unfold at such distance and so inexorably." And later: "Doug would lie awake staring at the maps with the fancy graphics of arrows sliding toward Baghdad from north, south, and west, as the commentators prattled on: neo-cons smugly suffering lesser minds, while their opponents expressed incredulity at the ignorance of the American people for supporting the idea of such a war; and then there were Doug's favorites, the young, pro-war liberals, so fresh-faced and eager to prove they weren't weak or queer." Doug, the cynical, amoral hustler at the center of all these stories, is not a likable protagonist but in the end he is the one with the clearest vision about what is really happening. This is a strong novel on many levels. Unfortunately, the author's ability to capture the prevalent hypocrisy and cynicism of this era leaves us virtually no one to root for or identify with, especially given our knowledge that things are not only not going to improve, they're going to get worse toward the end of the first decade of the 21st Century. The truth, in this case, is cold comfort indeed.(less)

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Apr 21, 2012 Jenn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: e-book, fiction, poetry, read-2012

If, when you started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, you spent the first chapter or so hoping the banking/industrial explanations would end, this is probably not going to be an ideal read. If, like me, you've been riveted by the behind-the-scenes drama of the banking crisis for the past 5ish years, Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic is the perfect accompaniment to the daily paper: a humanization of society's current villain class without any attempt to apologize or uncomplicate their choices...more If, when you started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, you spent the first chapter or so hoping the banking/industrial explanations would end, this is probably not going to be an ideal read. If, like me, you've been riveted by the behind-the-scenes drama of the banking crisis for the past 5ish years, Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic is the perfect accompaniment to the daily paper: a humanization of society's current villain class without any attempt to apologize or uncomplicate their choices.

The story follows four major point of view characters (though it occasionally dips into others) whose lives intersect in and out of the world of corporate banking: Doug, the daredevil investment banker on the rise; Henry, the nostalgic New York Fed president; Charlotte, a retired history teacher beginning to feel the system she's lectured on is actually evil; and Nate, a teenager growing up in the shadow of a bedroom community's vast wealth.

Doug works for Union Atlantic, a massive (think Citibank) investments-and-everything international firm, where he's paid to take and encourage massive risk; Henry is paid to keep an eye out for systemic risk just like this. The set up would seem to present these two men as having the central conflict, and yet it's Charlotte who represents the true angry party. At the book's start, we notice that her sanity might be questionable; she's begun to hear religious and cultural pronouncements from her beloved dogs, Wilkie and Samuel, that encourage her to believe her new neighbor's megaMcMansion might be a symbol of true evil.

The most memorable scenes in the book are the most outrageous -- a Fourth of July party gone completely, hideously, hilariously wrong is the grandest moment and clearest denunciation of wealth in Haslett's book -- but the best scenes are the most subtle. When Charlotte's otherwise powerful brother must confront her over her declining mental state, his timidity in the face of her righteousness briefly convinces -- or at least confuses -- the reader to reconsider who is sane and reasonable.

In the end, I think that's what Haslett's book wants from its readers. At the end, we wonder less who's right and who's wrong -- the villains here are clear -- but whether the system that creates them is even a fair measuring stick.

I'd give this a personal 5, but I think it might register as a 3 for those who don't like giant blocks of text about derivatives trading. (less)

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Sep 04, 2011 Larry Hoffer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Doug Fanning, a cocky war hero, is a tremendously successful banker in Boston, where he works for a major financial institution. Having grown up the son of a housekeeper in a working-class suburb of Boston, his competitive nature has taken him to the top of his profession, giving him authority for multi-million-dollar financial transactions all over the world. Charlotte Graves is an eccentric former teacher whose family has long had roots in the wealthy Boston suburb of Finden. She lives with he...more

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Apr 06, 2010 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: may-jun-2010

Although most reviewers praised Haslett's ambitious debut novel, they agreed on little else. Some extolled his richly imagined and beautifully depicted characters, while others denounced them as overly simplistic ciphers. Critics regarded Haslett's writing by turns as elegant, overwrought, graceful, and awkward, and they generally considered the wealth of financial information he imparts ""so unobtrusive that he teaches a great deal without appearing pedagogical"" (San Francisco Chronicle). Howe...more

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Mar 17, 2012 Sherri rated it 3 of 5 stars

Doug Fanning works for Union Atlantic - a major bank and he is playing fast and loose with their money in the international market.

He also just recently bought land and built an outrageously large house in Finden, Massachusetts where his one and only neighbor is trying to oust him from his house.

Charlotte Graves' family had willed the land to the town and she believes the town sold the land to Doug Fanning illegally and that based on the will the land should revert back to the family.

Nate Fulle...more

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Dec 29, 2009 Lauren rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: best-of-2009, boston-or-close-by

Very good indeed. It's a little shaggy in places but the writing is beautiful and it is just a smart novel - filled with ideas and things to ponder. Shocking - in a good way - ending.

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Mar 18, 2010 Alice Meloy rated it 3 of 5 stars

This 300-page novel has a very strong collection-of-short-stories feel to it. Haslett introduces so many colorful characters and so many issues that he really needed to devote more space to developing each story and each relationship. But it's a compelling read nonetheless. We watch the three main characters, a spinster who is a retired history teacher, a young bank executive, and a rudderless high school boy as their lives become enmeshed in a property fight. But things are much more complex: b...more

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Oct 14, 2012 John Pappas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

To describe this novel as being about what it means to live in a post-9/11 democracy would be a bit too reductive, but would give the sense of the tension wrought by the warring principles that motivate the main characters. The responsibility to maintain the public good versus free market individualism, and all of the ethical conundrums that result from the clash of these two value sets, lies at the heart of this narrative. As an elderly retired history teacher slowly goes mad (so that she imagi...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Estibaliz79 rated it 2 of 5 stars

2 1/2

A pesar de que la historia se ambienta en los Estados Unidos de hace una década, esta novela aborda un tema que, lamentablemente, no deja de estar de actualidad por más que pasen los meses. Una visión cruda y realista de lo que sucede cuando unos pocos se dedican a jugar con el sistema financiero; y de como resulta fácil que se salgan con la suya, porque todo es cuestión de confianza, y no se puede dejar que el sistema colapse. Aunque es excesivamente técnica y compleja en algunos de sus pl...more

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Nov 10, 2012 Risa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Adam Haslett wrote one of my favorite-ever collections of short stories, "You Are Not a Stranger Here", and so I approached this debut novel with a great deal of hope and enthusiasm. As in his short story collection, the writing here is beautiful . The characters are all profoundly damaged and/or morally compromised, which may pose a challenge for some readers. However, I'm certain a few of these characters will long remain in my memory, and that is one of my measures of an effective novel. In a...more

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May 28, 2012 Chad rated it 4 of 5 stars

Adam Haslett’s 2002 short story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here explored topics we often conceal from others: solitude, suicide, mental illness, and death. These themes are present in all of Haslett’s exquisitely crafted stories. Haslett possesses an exceptional gift of bringing together characters with very different values, social statuses, and sexual orientations. As an anthropologist for wayward souls and misfits, Haslett is fascinated with the beauty and learning that emerge from the...more Adam Haslett’s 2002 short story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here explored topics we often conceal from others: solitude, suicide, mental illness, and death. These themes are present in all of Haslett’s exquisitely crafted stories. Haslett possesses an exceptional gift of bringing together characters with very different values, social statuses, and sexual orientations. As an anthropologist for wayward souls and misfits, Haslett is fascinated with the beauty and learning that emerge from the intersections of these various characters.

Union Atlantic, Haslett’s first novel, continues exploring these themes. Doug Fanning, Nate Fuller, and Charlotte Graves, the novel’s three main characters, first appear to have little in common. Doug is a former soldier who later makes a small fortune in the banking industry. Nate is a recent high school graduate, a conscious underachiever who is mourning his father’s suicide. Charlotte is a former high school history teacher, and she is descending into mental illness.

Doug, Nate, and Charlotte are all haunted with the memory of deaths, some in the far past and some more recent. Doug served as a soldier on a naval ship in the Persian Gulf in 1988. The crew of the Vincennes misinterpreted a civilian plane as an enemy carrier, one that was preparing to attack. The Vincennes shot down the plane and killed myriad innocent civilians, including families with children. Although Doug was not directly responsible for the deaths he was present when the orders were given. This incident , combined with his codependent relationship with his alcoholic mother, helped shape layers of indifference and self-preservation. Many reviewers have stated that Fanning is a character lacking a strong moral code---or a character without morals---but this is too simplistic a response. Doug sees people the way corporations see people: not as individuals but as groups that are to be manipulated and used.

Doug is a complex character, and Haslett spends more time with him than he does Charlotte or Nate. You want Doug to feel something or at the very least reach an understanding about how his actions affect others. Yet this would not be a genuine character trajectory for Doug. Doug’s character in many ways symbolizes capitalism as a social structure. The downfall of one is the downfall of the other. However, Haslett raises important questions: Can our world survive without capitalism? Is it possible for a bank the size of Union Atlantic, the Brodigninain financial institution where Doug served as both head of foreign operations and head of Department of Special Plans (If the latter title sounds suspicious in an Enron type of way, then you’re right on track.), to actually collapse? Doesn’t our world need people like Fanning? As Charlotte, who is engaged in a lawsuit over land with Fanning, tells Nate, “ ‘Can you trust the pulse of life without becoming Mr. Fanning? Because he is the future. One way or the other. His kind of rapaciousness, it doesn’t end. It just bides its time.’”

When Charlotte was a younger woman she had a passionate love affair with an intellectual named Eric. Charlotte is not a woman who offers affections easily, and her relationship with Eric was the only significant romantic relationship she experienced in her life. Charlotte’s time with Eric was limited, and he died of a heroin overdose when she was with him. His death affected Charlotte for the rest of her life, and she retreated into a self-righteous isolation. Imagine a cross amongst Miss Havisham, Angela Davis, and Hilary Rodham Clinton. She directs her anger toward Doug because of the ostentatious mansion he built next door to her house, and she simultaneously mentors Nate because he reminds her of Eric. Nate, similar to Charlotte and Doug, is also living in the shadow of death. The difference is that Nathan’s father committed suicide less than a year before the narrative begins, and Nathan is much younger and far less capable of understanding his grief than either Fanning or Charlotte. Fanning uses Nate to get information about Charlotte for the lawsuit, and he “rewards” Nate by letting Nate perform unrequited sexual activities on Fanning. These experiences are not about sexual identity for Fanning, but they can also not be relegated into the murky categories of control and manipulation. Yes, those are definitely driving forces, but Fanning does feel something for Nate. Early in the novel Haslett refers to Fanning’s feelings as “a passing sorrow.” Indeed, Fanning both cares for and detests Nate. After their final encounter, Fanning looks at Nate and describes him as “a lamed foal awaiting its owners merciful bullet.”

The deaths the characters have experienced, as well as the solitude in which they reside, shape their actions. It would be too simplistic to only link the characters to a larger “theme” they may or may not represent, but I have already connected Fanning to (the death of) capitalism. Charlotte’s descent easily parallels our country’s loss of conviction---a death of the intellect, if you will. Nate, caught between Charlotte and Fanning, identifies more with the values of the former but will inherit a world shaped by the values of the latter. The ending of Union Atlantic felt a little rushed, and as any good novel does, it left me wanting more. For example, it was clear why Nate would let someone like Fanning sexually and emotionally dominate him, but what was not clear by the novel’s ending was how this relationship affected Nate. The last scene with Nate shows the possibility of a healthier relationship with another boy closer to Nate’s age, but it’s unclear how deeply Fanning’s actions scarred him. The strongest moments in Union Atlantic are the ones that read as short stories, Haslett’s forte: Chapter 9 tells the beautiful, heartbreaking story of Charlotte’s relationship with Eric. Chapter Nineteen sees Fanning reunited, briefly, with his mother. This happier, healthier version of her does not match the solitary, drunken images he has carried with him all his adult life. The biggest commonality amongst Fanning, Charlotte, and Nate is that---in very different ways---they are all outcasts, ghosts who are unable to engage with the world. At the end of the novel only Nate has the promise of a different future, the promise of moving beyond “the netherworld between the living and the forgotten dead.”
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Apr 12, 2011 Keirstan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american, contemporary, favorites, fiction

Adam Haslett’s debut novel Union Atlantic is a slam dunk as far as I’m concerned. Haslett’s well-crafted prose—which I can’t wait to read more of once I get my hands on his short story collection, You Are Not a Stranger Here—posits an eerily plausible account of the causes the current financial crisis. While the esoteric world of margin accounts and mortgage-backed securities can be intimidating, Haslett does a wonderful job of explaining the arcane terminology and practices via his believable a...more Adam Haslett’s debut novel Union Atlantic is a slam dunk as far as I’m concerned. Haslett’s well-crafted prose—which I can’t wait to read more of once I get my hands on his short story collection, You Are Not a Stranger Here—posits an eerily plausible account of the causes the current financial crisis. While the esoteric world of margin accounts and mortgage-backed securities can be intimidating, Haslett does a wonderful job of explaining the arcane terminology and practices via his believable and surprisingly sympathetic cast of characters.

We first meet Doug Fanning as a young man serving in the Navy during the first Gulf War. One day, during a routine operation, Doug witnesses an unidentified plane on his radar and alerts his commanding officer. Failing to divulge all of the details of the plane, Doug’s ship, the Vincennes, mistakenly attacks an Iranian passenger jet, killing all 260 civilians on board. However, instead of being disciplined, the men are rewarded by the military in an effort to avert a prolonged investigation in an already shaky political climate.

Once he is out of the Navy, Doug finds himself escalating the corporate ladder to the number two position at Union Atlantic, a Bank of America-like financial services juggernaut. Under his superior, the bottom line-obsessed Jeffrey Holland, Doug manipulates the complicated system of banking entities and financial applications to make a lot of money for himself and his company while avoiding potential setbacks imposed by the regulatory authorities. In doing so, however, Doug ultimately finds himself authorizing—and then attempting to cover up—a series of bad decisions made by a greedy protégé.

In the midst of the financial drama is the story of Doug’s neighbor, Charlotte Graves. Charlotte is a bit of a crank, but deeply loyal to her liberal beliefs about politics and society. So, when Doug tears down acres of forest to build an eyesore of a mansion next-door, Charlotte focuses her energy on the lawsuit she has filed to take the land back. While Doug clearly underestimates Charlotte as a nagging irritant, she is in fact much deeper than her politics lead others to believe. Once she begins tutoring Nate Fuller, a local high school student coping with his father’s recent suicide, the details of her tumultuous college relationship with the deeply troubled Eric come to light, revealing cracks in the scrupulous character she has long prided herself on maintaining.

For me, the resounding success of Union Atlantic is found in its ability to assess human morality by its reaction to the chaos of the financial crisis. While Doug is for all intents and purposes the villain of this novel, he is by no means a flat character. After his experience in the Navy, Doug learns that cleverly masked mistakes are often rewarded and as a result, puts this knowledge into practice at Union Atlantic. Charlotte, on the other hand, operates solely off of her strong beliefs about modern society. As a result, though, she finds herself isolated from long desired human companionship.

Adam Haslett’s Union Atlantic is hands down one of the best books I’ve read in a while and comes highly recommended to readers of all types. I look forward to hearing more from this insightful voice in contemporary literature.(less)

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Mar 07, 2010 Japhy Grant rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've been a huge fan of Adam Haslett for a long time and eagerly awaited the release of his first novel. Union Atlantic is very much a novel of the moment and captures the current mood of nagging doubt, plain-faced greed and nostalgia soaked apathy that has settled over the country.

While the characters that populate the novel: a mercenary banker who's hollowed himself out so as to be a better instrument to others, a self-righteous aging school teacher whose liberalism has accomplished nothing mo...more

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Apr 09, 2013 Kiera Healy rated it 2 of 5 stars

There is a really good story in Union Atlantic. It's about a crazy old woman who nevertheless has flashes of brilliance, and her legal battles with a flashy banker who has built a monstrosity of a mansion on land bequeathed to the local town by her grandfather. It's interesting, well-told, and occasionally emotionally gripping.

Unfortunately, it's buried beneath the rest of this messy novel, full of unpleasant characters, credibility-stretching coincidences, and long, uninteresting passages (one...more

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Jun 07, 2010 Steven rated it 4 of 5 stars

In "Union Atlantic", Doug Fanning is a hot-shot investment banker for a mega-bank similar to Chase or Bank of America. He is a thirty-something metro-sexual who is as unscrupulous as he is ambitious. The head of Union Atlantic, Jeffery Holland, hired Fanning for the sole purpose of getting around banking regulations in order to maximize profits: "I understand the position you're in. That's what Doug had told Holland during his final interview for the job. The board wants results. They want them...more In "Union Atlantic", Doug Fanning is a hot-shot investment banker for a mega-bank similar to Chase or Bank of America. He is a thirty-something metro-sexual who is as unscrupulous as he is ambitious. The head of Union Atlantic, Jeffery Holland, hired Fanning for the sole purpose of getting around banking regulations in order to maximize profits: "I understand the position you're in. That's what Doug had told Holland during his final interview for the job. The board wants results. They want them quickly. What didn't need to be said, what Doug's tone of absolute confidence had said for itself: There will be times when it would be better if you didn't know everything. I understand that too." Holland had overseen Union Atlantic's growth from a mid-level regional bank in New England to one of the largest banks in the country and "to such mealy-mouthed, process nonsense, Doug was the perfect antidote: a means to direct action."

A bastard-child from humble origins, Doug has just built a very conspicuous mcmansion in Finden, a bedroom community outside of Boston. He has built his tacky faux-palace on land purchased from the town which had previously been a nature preserve donated to the town 50 years ago by Charlotte Graves' grandfather.

Charlotte Graves is a former history teacher at the local high school. In her 60s, she is viewed by the townsfolk as a bit eccentric; and we come to find out that Charlotte was fired for teaching history from a liberal activist perspective instead of the whitewashed, conservative newsreel approach. We also come to find out that Charlotte is a true intellectual who had gone to Columbia for her masters degree and had once been a librarian in the big NYC public library before having her heart broken by the tragic death of her one and only love of her life.

Growing up, Charlotte’s family had eschewed the hoytie-toytie summer scenes on Nantucket or the Cape. Instead, the Graves spent their summer vacations at their farm house in Finden. Charlotte had moved into this house and lived as an old maid ever since the death of her fiancé back in the early 70s. The land adjacent to the Graves' house - a couple hundred acres - had been donated to the town of Finden on the condition that it remain a nature preserve in perpetuity. Strapped for cash, the town of Finden sold the land to Doug Fanning. To Charlotte, Doug Fanning and his house built on the former nature preserve are not only an affront to her grandfather's wishes, but represents to her all that is wrong with America. She sees Doug and "his kind", as she likes to say, as the embodiment of everything from the Iraq War to our narcissistic fast-food culture. And Charlotte takes a stand to win back the property in court and thus win a symbolic victory for the image of America she was raised on by her father, who was a die-hard FDR liberal and regulator for the SEC.

Incidentally, Charlotte's brother, Henry Graves, is the Chairman of the New York branch of the Federal Reserve. Unlike many of his colleagues, Henry is a by-the-book banker who has integrity and sees the regulatory aspect of his job as crucial to making American society function. In short, Henry is cut from the same cloth as his father, but he is part of a dying breed and feels increasingly ineffectual against the rising current of laisez-faire capitalism in American society.

It just so happens that Doug Fanning is neck-deep in fraudulent investment schemes that threaten to put Union Atlantic Bank completely underwater. To big to fail, if Union Atlantic collapses it would create shockwaves that would bring the American economy to the brink of ruin. Sound familiar? Part of what makes this book so interesting is that the final manuscript was submitted to the publisher nine months(?) before the banking collapse and Wall Street Bailout back in the fall of 2008. For that reason, many have said that "Union Atlantic" is the defining literary portrait of the age. This novel started out strong. It was reminiscent of some old masters like Dickens, Fitzgerald, and Nathanial West, but also reminded me of contemporary writers like Thomas Wolfe or even Jay McInerney. The novel felt big and important, and was great fun to read.

I really, really, really loved the first half of this book. Haslett's prose is elegant, crisp, and witty. For example, early on we find Doug frustrated as he tries to negotiate his way through Finden's quaint downtown:"Stuck behind a Volvo moving in slow motion through the center of Finden, Doug examined the suburban scorecard stacked up its rear window. According to the stickers, the driver of various members of her family had attended Andover, Stanford, Cornell, and Yale Medical School."

Additionally, I loved Charlotte's perspective on the state of American culture. Mentioned previously, she sees Fanning's house as "merely the furthest and most galling advance of the much larger institution, the one that had begun decades ago, first at a distance", like a fancy stroller in the public library or mommies causing a fuss about high calorie meat at the supermarket. But more recently, Charlotte had seen more and more of "the giant cars, the ones that looked as if they should have gun turrets mounted on their roofs, manned by the children glaring from the backseat. Haslett cogently shows how Charlotte's sees the world and her personal experience through the prism of current events: "For years the news had made so much of bombings in the Middle East, and of course in dear old New York now as well, and of the birds of prey we released in retaliation but they never mentioned the eyes of the wealthy young and the violence simmering numbly there. She had seen it at school, the way her students had grown pointed, turned into swords wielded by their masters. As soon as she began speaking of such things openly the principal had her gone to the retirement board and they had got rid of her. Nearly forty years of teaching history to children of this town and they hustled her out for speaking the truth."

The kind of writing I point to above seems to be lacking as the novel moves along and introduces more of the secondary characters. As the plot develops the reader gets less witty and cogent insights about our culture in this particularly time we live in. At only 350 pages, I got the feeling that Haslett had bitten off more than he could chew and that he rushed to finish the book (or maybe was under pressure from his publisher to keep it short). Consequently, we are left with something that in the last 100-150 pages feel sloppy and lacks the eloquence, wit, and nuance that was so prevalent in the first half of the book.
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Jul 10, 2010 ElSeven rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm having trouble quantifying what exactly I think about this book. It's pretty enough, certainly. If nothing else, it was a pleasure to read the words in the book, but I'm not sure if I liked what they all meant. I'm not even sure what point was being made. That, American life is ultimately empty and meaningless? That war and consumerism have left us with a generation of sociopaths, for whom success and gain is the only measure of worth? That the banking system is bad? It seemed like there was...more

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Oct 31, 2009 Noreen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2009

Adam Haslett is the author of a wonderful collection of stories called You Are Not a Stranger Here, published in 2002. Union Atlantic is his first novel and it is a dazzler. It's the first novel I've come across that takes on the appalling implosion in the financial world with any real attention and intelligence. And it's a great read.

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