The Rich Man's Table

by Scott Spencer

From the greatly admired author of Men in Black, Waking the Dead, and Endless Love, a novel about a legendary singer who was the god of music to the young of the 1960s and 1970s, as seen through the eyes of his illegitimate son.

The narrator is Billy Rothschild, who grows up obsessively searching for the father he never knew. He's nine when he discovers his father is Luke Fairchild, the most idolized and imitated folk-rock singer of his time, embraced as the truth-telling voice of his generation. Later Billy discovers that Esther (his mother) and Luke were the emblematic couple; a picture of them wrapped in each other's arms, walking down a rainy New York City street, graced the cover of Luke's most famous early album. Songs about Esther abound in the Fairchild songbook.        

Unacknowledged by Luke, tormented by the omnipresence of the Luke Fairchild legend, Billy seeks out everyone and anyone who can give him the priest who almost brought Luke to Christ (Father Richard "Luke had thrown himself into so many things--communistic thinking, Hinduism, drugs, patriotism, materialism . . . But he always burned right through it . . . I saw in Luke . . . a man haunted by God") . . . Luke's former lovers . . . Luke's musicians . . . Luke's drivers . . . Luke's myriad interviewers . . . Luke's drug couriers . . . Luke's friends, yes-men, enemies.

Billy becomes the chronicler of his father's life, and the story takes shape both as Billy's discovery of himself and as the biography of Luke Fairchild.

The Rich Man's Table brilliantly spans the decades between the early sixties, when Luke, then a scruffy folk singer, played for handouts in Greenwich Village nightclubs, and the late nineties, when the dreams of youth have faded in the wake of lost loves, dashed hopes, and the nightmarish distortions of fame. Scott Spencer brings alive the energy and the essence of that time for those who were there, as well as for those who wish they had been.

Genres: Fiction, Novels

271 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Scott Spencer (b. 1945) is the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of ten novels, including Endless Love and A Ship Made of Paper, both of which have been nominated for the National Book Award. Two of his books, Endless Love and Waking the Dead, have been adapted into films.

He has taught at Columbia University, the University of Iowa, and Williams College, and Bard College's Bard Prison Initiative. Spencer is an alumnus of Roosevelt University. In 2004, he was the recipient of a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship. For the past twenty years, he has lived in a small town in upstate New York.

Spencer has also worked as a journalist. He has published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, GQ, O, The Oprah Magazine, and he is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone.

Reviews

[Michael]

Billy grew up without a father, a reality that stung him in his childhood days. Growing up, him and his friend use to play a game: "Is that my Dad over there." In the game, they look at random strangers in the streets calling out "Is that my dad." It started off amusing, but when he approaches a man that knows his name his life is altered forever when his mom informs him that someone else is his Dad. Unlike the stranger that he thought that was his Dad, his mom confesses that his dad is rich and a musician. However this does not make his life any better, yet he longs to see his dad in person. While his mom has accepted the fact that her marriage is over, Billy grows up searching for his dad whereabouts, a lost cause to his mother.

Meanwhile the relationship he has with his significant other,is perishing. To his credit, he cannot be devoted to someone when his mind is obsessed with seeing his Dad. Until he reconnects with his Dad, Billy is lost and confused, in this touching, lyrical and sentimental book about mending past brokenness.

Although this book started off very promising, it did not capture the beauty as Spencer's other novels. The writing style was very weak, it was hard to overlook but I did like the main characters. Minor ones? Not so much. I felt the plot swerved away from the main idea, hence the average three stars, but it was a solid three.

Lastly, I was disappointed at the conclusion of this book but not disappointed that I read it.

[Ann]

I love this guy and enjoyed this story, but found it a little meandery. Something about the beginning was confusing to me, and while it may have been done purposely I found the alternating images of the father character sort of hard to process. I wish the grand standing scene near the end had been different but that might only mean I wished for the father to be a different person, one who would do something other than what he did. Not going to spoil - read it yourself and see what you think!

[Debby]

It could have been a 4 star ,but I found it very repetitive and tedious at times . Yes Billy's obsession with his father maybe requires this repetition but at times it was a bit much for me .Starting with the title of the book ,there are symbolisms strewn in the book ,but I did not dwell much on them reading the story . For sure it is not accidental that Luke comes disguised as a priest to visit Esther in hospital that lies in a coma state ,and a bit later in the book ,opens his shirt to show a "mezuzah"..etc...
And this also made me wonder ,as a mezuzah is almost always a fixture that holds the parchment with inscriptions to be put on doors. What a person would wear on him would be the star of David usually .
I confess that skipped some pages of reminiscences that I found terribly boring and repetitive,that maybe could have been stand alone essay or article of the times and the scene it wanted to portray .The ending was a bit forced ,but still glad I found this book .

[Vonia]

A great writer's talent is to have me like a book on a topic that I typically have no interest at all in... Mister Spencer has done that here. I typically have no interest in rock/music/traveling scene, at least not the Woodstockesque sort described in this novel... but Spencer was able to infuse enough excerpts regarding family, friendships, and/or relationships that I found it quite satisfying.

[LInda L]

Hated it -- I'm reading a lot of his books because I so loved his newest one. So far, I've hated all the previous ones.

[Eric Neufeld]

I've read both Boy from the North Country and The King's Table. The latter is written like an autobiography of a young man who believes he is the son of Luke Fairchild, a Bob Dylanesque figure; this one is written by a young man who plainly believes he is Bob Dylan's son. Sussman, a meticulous writer, maybe overly so, shows Dylan as a giant intellect, who understands the Greek playwrights as well as he knows Woody Guthrie's ballads, and whose compulsion to see the extraordinary defines his life and his craft. For the most part, this Dylan is neither very kind nor very cold nor very gentle nor very rude; just a seeker and is exhilarating to be around.

There is much more to the story than that, but no spoilers here. I hadn't thought much about Bob Dylan lately, though I was an on and off fan. The portrait of Dylan reflects those critics who view his legacy as a brilliant stylist with words and tunes. Check other reviews to see more about the mother-son relationship.

[Rachel]

Meh.