Union Atlantic in Q&A with Adam Haslett

Mar 01, 2010 Schmacko rated it really liked it

(Minor spoilers.)
I loved Adam Haslett’s first book, You Are Not a Stranger Here. It was a collection of shorts stories, most of these are about people suffering under severe mental duress and the people helping them. The book was so good that it was considered for a Pulitzer—a first book and short stories no less.

Union Atlantic still shows that Haslett has an amazing gift for writing. It’s an engaging story about an Enron-like financial failure and half a dozen people who the economic crisis pe (Minor spoilers.)
I loved Adam Haslett’s first book, You Are Not a Stranger Here. It was a collection of shorts stories, most of these are about people suffering under severe mental duress and the people helping them. The book was so good that it was considered for a Pulitzer—a first book and short stories no less.

Union Atlantic still shows that Haslett has an amazing gift for writing. It’s an engaging story about an Enron-like financial failure and half a dozen people who the economic crisis personally affects. Because the author used to teach economics, Haslett knows the fiscal history, and he has a lot to say about modern changes in finance and society. The book makes for a surprisingly engaging read, considering the subject matter. Haslett still uncovers the emotional truths he showed in his short stories, but that human core is a little more buried in the extended economic exposition of Union Atlantic.

Main character Douglas Fanning is a hotshot VP, not Ivy League at all, an ex-military man who has upped the profits for his company Union Atlantic. Douglas succeeds by listening, eavesdropping, bending the rules, or finding a way to circumvent them. (This character is really Thomas Wolfe/Bret Easton Ellis territory, but we’ll forgive that.) After garnering a huge bonus, Fanning goes back to the rich Massachusetts town where his alcoholic mom used to clean houses. Doug buys a property and starts to build a McMansion, an eyesore meant mainly to impress.

The problem is that the yuppie’s new house leveled a forest that Charlotte Graves’ father donated to the town. Charlotte—a retired history teacher—is out to see Fanning’s house demolished. She starts a lawsuit against the city for bulldozing her dad’s forest under. Charlotte’s a bit crazy; she talks to her two dogs; they talk back in the voices of Cotton Mather and Malcolm X.

Charlotte also tutors 17-year-old Nathan. Nathan’s father committed suicide the year before; Nathan is dealing with his grief-stricken mother. He’s also struggling coming out of the closet, when he develops a strong sexual obsession with the yuppie Fanning.

There are other characters; they mostly have to work with Union Atlantic, Douglas Fanning’s company. Charlotte’s brother works for the government, overseeing Wall Street regulations. A Union Atlantic employee helps cover up Fanning’s less-than-ethical dealings. Fanning’s boss is also a minor character.

All of the minor characters point to the first of two problems with the novel. So much of the story is about the financial situation and the set-up for the economic failure late in the book. We know this is going to happen; it’s a foregone conclusion that if these people don’t meet ruin, there’s really not going to be any story. Yet Haslett spends quite a few pages early on explaining the economic situation in detail. Perhaps he wants to make sure readers understand he knows what he’s talking about. Maybe Haslett wanted to make sure that he wasn’t presenting a story with a vague and undefined motivator. Either way, some of this reads like a Time article and less like a novel. It’s still fascinating stuff, but these paragraphs and pages of economy lessons are not engaging, emotional storytelling.

The second, smaller problem is a little more difficult to describe. Haslett pulls together some things in this novel, and leaves other storylines frayed. He has a “small world” premise where everyone is connected to everyone else, and often they have the opportunity to meet and have key interactions with each other. Likely, probability would say these happenstance run-ins wouldn’t occur. However, in the world of the author, this is OK, especially when Haslett’s story is also showing us how people are directly and indirectly affected by financial change.

However, why do Charlotte’s dogs speak in the voices of Cotton Mather and Malcolm X? Is this the conservative versus the radical? Is this to present two American voices across the centuries? This choice seems arbitrary, approaching the edge of pointless randomness. Wouldn’t it have been better to pick characters more involved in the financial history?

Finally, two-thirds in, Haslett sets up a single night which shows potential for comedy and tragedy combined, but then he doesn’t pull all his disparate threads together. Instead, the author has a prolonged denouncement where the financial failure occurs, and people then decide what to do with their lives. Late in the book, terrible things happen (as they are wont to do in novels). Yet, how Haslett’s characters emotionally deal with the fallout is handled in spare, almost shallow paragraphs.

Still, Haslett has a great gift for creating a story that I wanted to read to the end. He has an excellent grip on creating characters with mental instability. Haslett also does a fairly commendable job of talking about how humans are affected by the numbers that roll out on Wall Street. He does a brilliant job with voices of the main players—the truncated and unemotional talk of Fanning, the crazy ramblings of Charlotte, the sardonic tone of Nathan’s friends, and the speeches presented by the dogs. Haslett also provides a bigger historical picture of the financial failure, by having Charlotte provide a longer view of American and world history.

It’s a genuinely successful novel—a great read that’s just a smidge more mathematical and less emotional than I typically prefer.
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