Book Log 2010 #37: Union Atlantic by Adam Haslett

The conflict between a financial titan and a retired teacher over the construction of a gigantic house on what was public land (donated by the teacher's family) supposedly forms the main plot of this book. But its really more of story about our transition from post-9/11 paranoia to financial crisis, as main character Doug Fanning takes us from the Gulf (he was serving on the USS Vincennes when it shot down an Iranian civilian airliner) to a bank he built into a major financial services company by means that aren't always legal.

Fanning's life unravels as the book moves along, as he gets sued over his house, encounters a major problem at work, and enters an ill-advised physical relationship with a teenaged boy. It doesn't help that the teacher's brother is the chairman of the New York Fed, and that a friend of the teenaged boy is Fanning's boss.

I don't buy that much interconnection, and I think that was the foundation of a general discomfort I had with the book. The story line involving the house didn't do much for me, either on its face or metaphorically. I much prefered the similar conflict that was the basis for a book involving a bridge that was set locally (I could swear that I mentioned it here, but I can't fid the post).

It could be that I was permanently put off by the over the top praise for the book on the inside flap of its dust jacket. I quote: "Prescient, ambitious and irrestably complex, Union Atlantic is a deeply affecting portrait of the modern gilded age - the first decade of the 21st century. It is a singular work of fiction that is sure to be read and re-read as a classic of the times." There's almost no way the book could live up to that statement, and as it predictably failed to do so I think I felt more negative about the book than I would have otherwise.