 Hart has written a wonderfully funny book that has many passages of writing that are as good as anything I have ever read. Style is sometimes a four letter word, but Hart does it credit.
Reviewed by Bob Williams
Addled
by JoeAnn Hart
Little, Brown and Company
2007, ISBN 0-316-01500-8, $24.99, 320 pages
Many tiny parts of the world can appear to be a whole world. Very exclusive schools, many professions, and – as Hart shows us – country clubs are of this sort.
The Eden Rock Country Club has members and staff that represent most levels of society. In addition it has geese. This is not a choice. The destruction of the birds’ natural habitat by human encroachment has brought them to the greens of the country club where they are a hazard and a pest.
When Charles Lambert kills a goose with an accidental bad stroke on the golf course, it sets in progress a series of events. Some of these take place within Charles but many of them do not. The slain goose brings animal rights demonstrators and country club officials into a conflict that boils over into personal and professional lives.
The club manager, Gerard Wilton, is especially caught amongst conflicting forces. He is the club whipping boy when things go wrong, but he is clever and diplomatic, able to head off the vindictive Clendenning, the head of the board, deal with the staff problems, and struggle with the geese. He has the aid and sometimes the opposition of Vita, the temperamental cook, and presents a rigid, often stuffy, front to the world in general.
Charles Lambert’s wife Madeline and his daughter Phoebe power much of the book. Phoebe is an intellectual and a thorough pain to almost all that know her. Madeline is distraught at the extent of her husband’s reaction to the slain goose. He neglects his work as a bond analyst and begins classes in sculpture. He becomes so absorbed that she is left doubly alone since her former country club friends have ostracized her over Charles’s peculiar behavior. Her only friend is Dr Frank Nicastro. He is a gourmet, outspoken, and occasionally crude. He either loves Vita or her food. Madeline keeps him at arm’s length, caught up in her innate reserve.
The wicked matriarch of the club is Arietta. She keeps – and Madeline is her assistant – a written account of all the missteps of the women and men in the club. Since the club represents a tightly closed world, accidental incest is always a possibility. It is Arietta’s intention to prevent this, often by methods that are illegal.
All these men and women and geese and issues collide with each other in diverting and unexpected ways. Hart is a very neat writer and takes care of so many things at the same time that it is like watching an accomplished juggler.
Hart has written a wonderfully funny book that has many passages of writing that are as good as anything I have ever read. Style is sometimes a four letter word, but Hart does it credit. Recommended.
About the Reviewer: Bob Williams is retired and lives in a small town with his wife, dogs and a cat. He has been collecting books all his life, and has done freelance writing, mostly on classical music. His principal interests are James Joyce, Jane Austen and Homer. His writings, two books and a number of short articles on Joyce, can be accessed at: http://www.grand-teton.com/service/Persons_Places
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