The Colorado Springs Gazette final

‘The Unfolding’ is not author’s best

BY MARION WINIK Minneapolis Star Tribune

It’s been 10 years since A.M. Homes’ last book, “May We Be Forgiven,” featuring the author’s signature dark humor, sociological acuity and light-handed way with mayhem. Its main character was a Nixonologist by trade; conservative politics return in a more central role in the author’s latest, “The Unfolding,” which is unfortunately not her best.

“The Unfolding” begins in November 2008 with the loss of John Mccain to Barack Obama. Despair at this turn of events galvanizes a group of rich old white guys to form an alliance to take back America. “They woke up and discovered they were not on top anymore. It’s a rude awakening after hundreds of years and they’re taking it hard.”

The reader gets to hear their thoughts on this topic in truly stultifying detail as the novel tracks their meetings and conversations through the inauguration in January 2009, by which point a nefarious plan is in place.

At the center of the group is the Big Guy, a Republican moneybags who lives in Palm Springs with his wife, Charlotte; their 18-year-old daughter Meghan is at boarding school in D.C. The more interesting plot lines of the book are wedged in between the meetups of the Boring Old Man club (actually, they call themselves the Forever Men), focusing on Charlotte’s drinking and secret misery and Meghan’s growing understanding of her family and its place in the world.

Though Charlotte is a somewhat distant mom, the Big Guy and Meghan have a warm relationship. But their connection is shaken when, after Charlotte gets out of rehab, the couple decide to tell Meghan the truth about her identity and her mother’s unhappiness.

Meghan and Charlotte are both interesting characters and the book is at its best whenever they are on the page. As for the rest, well, though the ad copy for “The Unfolding” calls it a “prescient” “alternative history,” it seems more informed by hindsight than prescience; since the right actually did take back the country after the Obama years, I’m not sure what’s so alternative about it.

DETAILS

“The Unfolding” by A.M. Homes; Viking (416 pages, $28)

BOOKS

en-us

2022-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://daily.gazette.com/article/282896619635223

The Gazette, Colorado Springs