Darlings, If This Makes The New York Times Ten Best List For 2013, I Could Lose My Respect For That List!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                       The first thing I want to say, girls, to David Gilbert, regarding his novel, "& Sons," is, "Honey, get over yourself!"  I can just picture Gilbert, sitting and writing this, spewing out this pretentious crap, while thinking, "Oh, boy, I am going to be the toast of the literary world!!!!  This will be Book Of The Year!!!!!!!!!!"

                                         Well, guess what, David???? You are wrong!

                                          The book is a downer.  But that is not its  problem.  The trouble is, it is all over the place, and unfocused, with a narrative voice so indistinct readers have to keep reminding themselves who that narrator is!!!!!!!!!!

                                            Not to mention the book has no real focus.   Sandwiched between two funerals, is a Louis Auchincloss type novel (the kind that has not been written since Auchincloss died!!!!) about fathers and sons, and loss.  What Gilbert has done is thrown everything into the pot--J.D. Salinger, John Knowles, "A Separate Peace" (all  of which are mentioned within the context of the story) and an account of alleged homosexuality which is the trauma at the surface of everything, and suggests Gilbert may have rubbed himself off too hard and red, while watching "Tea And Sympathy" as a youngster, and eroticizing Deborah Kerr!  Hey, David, even I, as a gay man, can tell you, the film to eroticize Deborah in is "From Here To Eternity!"

                                            As if things cannot get worse--and, believe me, they do-- midway through the story, he goes all Kazuo Ishiguro on the reader, suggesting, that Andy Dyer, the junior son of the Salingersesque/Knowlesian author at hand, who was conceived during a hypocritical dalliance with an au pair, is a clone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Give me a break, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                            The most fascinating, and tantalizing, situation is the series of letters Andrew, the shit author, father, and human being, writes as a child to his best friend, Charles Topping--a friendship that is betrayed when they are older boys, when Topping, who isn't sure yet (as many boys are) exactly how
he feels about his friend Andrew, tries to tell him, and in return is attacked and verbally spat on by Andrew for alleged homosexuality!  Fuck you, Andrew!  I hope you rot in hell!  And you know something?  I hope David Gilbert does, too, because something about his tone seems to advocate this viewpoint!  I hope one of those children you exploit in your publicity, to prove your heterosexuality, (which is the reason literary men always mention their wives and children; the ONLY  reason, in fact!!!!!!!!!) turn out to be gay; let's see how you deal with it, or maybe they will spurn you, like Dyer's sons do!!!!!!!!!! Dyer and David deserve everything they get!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                          Charles Topping, who is dead when the novel begins, and is the novel's sole sympathetic character, is at least delivered of having to live among these rotten excuses for humanity!  Just as the reader is excused, when, in relief, he closes the jacket of the book, at the end!

                                             Darlings, you can bet I consigned this one to the slag heap!  For a novel that is full of potentially good ideas, (all of which, including the alleged classic novel within this novel, "Ampersand," a complete rip-off of "A Separate Peace," as is the Andrew-Charles relationship to the Gene and Phineas one!!!!) Mr. Gilbert gets lost in the mire of his own literary egotism.  It is  ironic that I am writing this on the morning that the documentary "Salinger" opens in theaters.  Gilbert obviously sees himself as the successor to such, but I have news for him--he's not!  I can spot a phony a mile away, and there is no phonier novel this year than David Gilbert's "& Sons."

                                              Now, if there is a prize for THAT, it will be the only honor it wins!

                                              Up yours, David!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!