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WORK TITLE: The World of Tomorrow
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.brendanmathews.com/
CITY: Lenox
STATE: MA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://simons-rock.edu/academics/faculty-bios/languages-and-literature-faculty/brendan-mathews.php
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2012054655
Descriptive conventions:
rda
LC classification: PS3613.A8264
Personal name heading:
Mathews, Brendan
Found in: The best American short stories 2010, 2010: p. 198 (Brendan
Mathews) p. 397 (MFA University of Virginia; teaches at
Bard College at Simon's Rock, Mass.; author of "My last
attempt to explain to you what happened with the lion
tamer").
================================================================================
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Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
PERSONAL
Born NY; married; children: four.
EDUCATION:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, B.A. (highest honors), 1991; University of Virginia, M.F.A., 2005.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, novelist, short-story writer, and educator. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, associate editor, 1997-99; Britannica.com, News Division, story editor, 1999-2000; University of Chicago/Fathom, Inc., senior multimedia producer, 2001-03; University of Virginia, assistant director of media relations, 2005-07; Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, MA, 2007—, associate professor of creative writing and literature, also division head of Languages & Literature.
University College Cork, Ireland, Fulbright visiting professor, 2014.
MEMBER:
Phi Beta Kappa.
AWARDS:Fulbright Scholar to Ireland; recipient of grants and fellowships, including from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Sewanee Writers Conference.
WRITINGS
Work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2010 and The Best American Short Stories 2014. Contributor to periodicals and websites, including Glimmer Train, Virginia Quarterly Review, Salon, and Cincinnati Review.
SIDELIGHTS
Brendan Mathews is a fiction writer, educator, and Fulbright Scholar who grew up in northern New York . He began his career writing short stories. At the time of an interview with Alice Chau for Port Online, Mathews was working on his debut novel, The World of Tomorrow, and told Chau: “I’ve been thinking a lot about the differences between short stories and novels because I’ve devoted most of the past two years to writing my first novel. This question of endings keeps coming up because when I’m writing a story I feel like the end is always in sight, however with the novel, there’s so much territory to explore, even if I don’t know where that exploration is ultimately going to lead.”
The World of Tomorrow was called an “impressive, wide-ranging debut” by a Kirkus Reviews contributor. Writing for the NPR: National Public Radio website, Jason Sheehan commented that The World of Tomorrow “is that rarest of historical novels, a book that catches a moment in a jar, holds it aloft and displays it for what it really is: Somebody else’s day before tomorrow, the instant right before the future comes.”
The novel primarily takes place over the course of one week in June during the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The World of Tomorrow finds a roguish Irishman, Francis Dempsey, sailing across the Atlantic in first class posing as a Scottish lord. Francis escaped from prison in Dublin, where he was incarcerated for selling supposed pornographic material, including the James Joyce novel Ulysses. He escaped while out of prison to attend his father’s funeral and is helped by their father’s former friends in the Irish Republican Army. Along with his younger brother, Michael, who has left a Catholic seminary, Francis and the IRA members go to a remote safe house, where Francis accidentally sets off an explosive, leaving him and his shell-shocked brother the sole possessors of a large sum of money.
Once in America, Francis and his brother look up their older brother, a jazz musician named Martin living in the Bronx. However, Francis is being pursued by Tommy Cronin, an IRA member sent by his chief, Gavin, to get Francis and the money. As the story continues, Francis’s infatuation with an heiress who is also an exquisite violinist leads to his getting caught by Tommy and directed by Gavin to assassinate the king of England, who is part of a British delegation scheduled to visit the World’s Fair. If Francis refuses, Gavin notifies him that he will kill everyone in his family. As a result, he begins training under Tommy’s tutelage.
Meanwhile, Michael, who was seriously impaired by the ill-fated bomb blast in Ireland and is now deaf and dumb, believes he can see the ghost of William Butler Yeats. “The schism in his identity is so acute that his mind conjures up a companion for him to ‘speak’ with,” noted John Freeman Gill in a review for the Washington Post Online. After wondering around the city and getting lost, Michael meets a Czech photographer named Lily Block, who is trying to delay returning to Prague, which has been occupied by the Nazis. Meanwhile, the older brother, Martin, is having difficulties with his uptight in-laws, who frown on his efforts to make a living as a musician. The novel follows the three brothers as they soon face major decisions as well as the prospect of an early demise.
“With the wit of a ’30s screwball comedy and the depth of a thoroughly researched historical novel, this one grabs the reader from the beginning to its suspenseful climax,” wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor. Noting that “Mathews brilliantly creates characters who embody the esprit de corps of immigrants,” Bill Kelly, writing in Booklist, went on to note that Mathews “movingly explores themes of class, society, race, and family.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, September 1, 2017, Bill Kelly, review of The World of Tomorrow, p. 56.
BookPage, September, 2017, Tom Deignan, “A Pulsating Prewar New York,” review of The World of Tomorrow, p. 18.
Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2017, review of The World of Tomorrow.
Publishers Weekly, May 15, 2017, review of The World of Tomorrow, p. 34.
ONLINE
Bard College at Simon’s Rock Website, https://simons-rock.edu/ (February 18, 2018), author faculty profile.
Bookreporter.com, https://www.bookreporter.com/ (September 21, 2017), Amy Gwiazdowski, review of The World of Tomorrow; (February 18, 2018), author biography and synopsis of The World of Tomorrow.
Brendan Mathews Website, https://www.brendanmathews.com (February 18, 2018).
Chicago Tribune Online, http://www.chicagotribune.com/ (September 5, 2017), Michael Upchurch, review of The World of Tomorrow.
Fantastic Fiction, https://www.fantasticfiction.com/ (February 18, 2018), brief author biography.
New York Times Online, https://www.nytimes.com/ (September 13, 2017), Kevin Baker, review of The World of Tomorrow.
NPR: National Public Radio Website, https://www.npr.org/ (September 6, 2017), Jason Sheehan, review of The World of Tomorrow.
Port Online, http://www.port-magazine.com/ (September 20, 2012), Alice Chau, “Author Interview: Brendan Mathews.”
Washington Post Online, https://www.washingtonpost.com/ (September 3, 2017), John Freeman Gill, “The World of Tomorrow’ Captures Swirling New York in 1939.”
Brendan Mathews is the author of THE WORLD OF TOMORROW. He was a Fulbright Scholar to Ireland, where he taught in the graduate creative writing program at University College Cork. His fiction has twice appeared in The Best American Short Stories and in Glimmer Train, Virginia Quarterly Review, Salon, Cincinnati Review and other publications in the US and UK. He has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Sewanee Writers Conference.
Born and raised in upstate New York, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received his MFA from the University of Virginia. He lives with his wife and their four children in Lenox, Massachusetts, and teaches at Bard College at Simon’s Rock.
Brendan Mathews
USA flag
Brendan Mathews is the author of The World of Tomorrow, published by Little, Brown & Co. He was a Fulbright Scholar to Ireland, where he taught in the graduate creative writing program at University College Cork. His fiction has twice appeared in The Best American Short Stories and in Glimmer Train, Virginia Quarterly Review, Salon, Cincinnati Review, and other publications in the US and UK. He has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Sewanee Writers Conference. Born and raised in upstate New York, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received his MFA from the University of Virginia. He lives with his wife and their four children in Lenox, Massachusetts, and teaches at Bard College at Simon’s Rock.
Novels
Brendan Mathews is the author of The World of Tomorrow, published by Little, Brown & Co. He was a Fulbright Scholar to Ireland, where he taught in the graduate creative writing program at University College Cork. His fiction has twice appeared in The Best American Short Stories and in Glimmer Train, Virginia Quarterly Review, Salon, Cincinnati Review, and other publications in the US and UK. He has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Sewanee Writers Conference. Born and raised in upstate New York, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received his MFA from the University of Virginia. He lives with his wife and their four children in Lenox, Massachusetts, and teaches at Bard College at Simon’s Rock.
Brendan Mathews
Professor Brendan Mathews
Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Literature
Division Head, Languages & Literature
Contact
Hall College Center
Office: Second floor
bmathews@simons-rock.edu
413-644-4281
Website
Academic Program Affiliation(s)
Languages & Literature, Creative Writing, Literary Studies
Areas of Specialization
Creative writing (fiction)
Modern Irish literature
Contemporary literature
Interests
Research Interests: 20th century Ireland, 1930s New York City, photography, film
Teaching Interests: Creative writing, literature and the formation of national identity, adaptation, graphic novels, the short story
Favorite/Regular Course Offered
Introduction to Creative Writing
Fiction Workshop
Literary Reinvention
Literature & Film
Modern Irish Literature
Focus: Ulysses
Focus: Chekhov
Contemporary African Literature
21st Century Literature
Biography
MFA, University of Virginia
BA (Highest Honors, Phi Beta Kappa), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
In 2014, Mr. Mathews was a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Ireland, where he was Fulbright Visiting Professor at University College Cork. His debut novel, The World of Tomorrow, was published in September 2017 by Little, Brown & Co. His stories have twice appeared in Best American Short Stories (2010 & 2014), as well as in Virginia Quarterly Review, Salon, Glimmer Train, and other magazines in the U.S. and U.K. Mr. Mathews has been teaching at Simon's Rock since 2007.
Highlights
Honors & Awards
Sustainable Arts Foundation Grant (2015)
Martha Boschen Porter Fund Grant (2015)
Fulbright U.S. Scholar Teaching & Research Award (2014)
Artist Fellowship, Massachusetts Cultural Council (2012)
Emily Clark Balch Prize, Virginia Quarterly Review (2007)
McGinnis-Ritchie Prize, Southwest Review (2007)
Stanley Elkin Scholarship, Sewanee Writers Conference (2006)
Selected Writing
"This Is Not A Love Song," Virginia Quarterly Review & Best American Short Stories 2014
"My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened with the Lion Tamer
" (excerpt), Cincinnati Review & Best American Short Stories 2010
"Lydia Davis: I kind of like the fact that my work isn't for everybody," Salon
Brendan Mathews: My Last Attempt to Explain What Happened to the Lion Tamer
Brendan Mathews, author of Port Fiction’s, My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened with the Lion Tamer talks to Alice Chau about the qualities of short stories and the effect of digital books on publishing
Lion Tamer — illustration by Sam Glynn
.
Alice Chau: Brendan, you specialise in writing short fiction, for which there must be a certain technique. What are the key qualities of a short story? Have you tried writing longer fiction?
Brendan Mathews: I don’t think there’s any definitive list of qualities, but any story has to have the demand to be read. There has to be something in the voice of the narrator or in the energy of the language that won’t let you stop until you’ve reached the end. The last paragraph, and certainly the last line, of a story matters in a way that the last paragraph of a novel rarely does. The best stories — and here you could pick anything by Alice Munro or William Trevor — always save something for the end, a way of pulling back to add a new context, or diving into the heart of a character to reveal an unseen layer.
As for longer work, I’ve been thinking a lot about the differences between short stories and novels because I’ve devoted most of the past two years to writing my first novel. This question of endings keeps coming up because when I’m writing a story I feel like the end is always in sight, however with the novel, there’s so much territory to explore, even if I don’t know where that exploration is ultimately going to lead.
Alice: Is it a priority to portray a culture, or even a subculture (such as the circus), to readers through your writing?
Brendan: Due to spending my childhood reading the encyclopedia, I have a lot of magpie interests and part of the fun of writing is trying to bring these to life on the page. Some of my stories are set amid golf.
courses and preschool pickup lines and big-box home-improvement stores, which is strict realism for some people but is very alien territory for others. Other stories have been about the circus, or disgruntled Babylonian gods, or the demolition and salvage business, or rock musicians in early-1990s Chicago. In every case the story only works if the characters and the narrative voice matter to the reader. The details of setting and culture can amplify or cast in relief whatever is at the heart of the story, but this heart has to come from the characters and what they want and need and are desperate to have.
Alice: In My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened with the Lion Tamer, none of the characters are given any names (other than their roles), yet they’re still engaging and relatable. How did you formulate these character tropes? Are they based upon people you know?
When I first started writing My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened with the Lion Tamer, I had in mind some kind of Pilgrims Progress allegory about romantic relationships populated by clowns, daredevils, strong men, that sort of thing. But the earliest drafts of the story just weren’t any good; the characters were tropes and nothing else. The more time I spent with the story, the more I tried to create characters who were wrestling with fears and desires that defied any easily defined role. I just tried to let them be people. Even with this gradual shift in thinking, I never imagined them with names. He was always the clown and she was always the aerialist, and they weren’t based on anyone I know — although the lion tamer bears more than a passing resemblance to the great Gunther Gebel-Williams.
What are your views on digital books? Do you think it has affected the state of publishing in the US?
I know that digital books are causing a lot of upheaval among publishers, but being a writer or short stories hasn’t exactly earned me a seat in the board room, so I couldn’t tell you which way it’s all going. Digital books won’t be the death of literature, any more than the printing press brought about the death of literature. People I know who read books on their Kindles and iPads read more now than they ever did before, and that’s a good thing. Personally, I still love the book as an object. I love the feel of pages and being able to make notes in the margins, and I love the culture of books. I am concerned that digital books will put an end to that experience of face-to-face community, of getting lost in the act of browsing. I guess I’m just not ready to trade my favorite bookseller for an algorithm that suggests books I might like.
Alice: What’s been your proudest moment as a writer?
Brendan: When I got the email notifying me that one of my stories was going to be in Best American Short Stories 2010, I called me wife to tell her the news and my voice was shaking so much she thought that someone in the family had died. It meant a lot because I’ve been reading Best American for more than 20 years and to finally see my name in the table of contents was a dream come true. It was even more of an achievement because I’d had a near miss two years earlier – Salman Rushdie, the guest editor for BASS 2008, wrote in the introduction that he had almost chosen one of my stories and that he was still “kind of sad” he hadn’t included it. Believe me, I was sadder. I thought I might never get another shot at it.
Alice: Are there any contemporary American authors that are particularly inspirational to you?
Brendan:I’ve probably pressed more copies of Aleksandar Hemon’s books into people’s hands than his own publicist has. And I keep turning to Edward P. Jones’s The Known World, perhaps the best novel of the current century, as I try to pick my way through my novel-in-progress. Among other writers currently living on the North American continent, I’d have to point to Colum McCann, Margaret Atwood – The Blind Assassin is an all-time favorite – Junot Diaz, Colson Whitehead, Lydia Davis, and Rivka Galchen. I’ve also got some really good friends – Mary Beth Keane, Eleanor Henderson, and Charles McLeod – who have all published knock-out novels in the past few years. Knowing that they’re already hard at work on their follow-up books helps to keep me at my desk, grinding away.
A pulsating prewar New York
Tom Deignan
(Sept. 2017): p18.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
By Brendan Mathews
Little, Brown, $28, 560 pages ISBN 9780316382199, audio, eBook available
New York City on the cusp of World War II is brought to glorious, messy life in Brendan Mathews' sprawling debut saga. The Dempsey brothers--Francis, Michael and Martin--all left Ireland under clouds of trouble. But Martin has started a new life in New York, marrying into a powerful political family, with ambitions to become a ground-breaking jazz musician. The trouble begins when his brothers come calling, and it becomes clear that the past is about to catch up with the Dempsey clan.
Mathews deftly handles a large cast of characters in The World of Tomorrow. On a collision course with the Dempseys is an IRA killer, an ambitious photographer fleeing Nazi-dominated Europe and a troubled heiress, among others. Perhaps the most vibrant character of all, however, is New York itself. In hard-boiled prose that ranges from gossipy to poetic, Mathews takes us from humble Bronx homes to rowdy Manhattan jazz clubs, from grimy back alleys to palatial Fifth Avenue estates.
Looming over these interconnected lives is the 1939 World's Fair, held in Queens and seen by many as a light of hope in an increasingly dark world. But just as Old-World troubles follow Mathews' immigrants to the New World, so will the war in Europe inevitably involve America. Until then, the Dempsey brothers--and all of the characters who've become entangled in their lives--may have only one choice: kill or be killed.
The World of Tomorrow is a sweeping, impressive accomplishment. Perhaps it could have been 50 or so pages shorter, and the ghostly appearance of an Irish literary icon may push past the cusp of believability. Still, Mathews has written an insightful immigrant epic, not to mention a first-class literary thriller.
REVIEW BY TOM DEIGNAN
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Deignan, Tom. "A pulsating prewar New York." BookPage, Sept. 2017, p. 18. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A502517410/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d875c74c. Accessed 28 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A502517410
The World of Tomorrow
Bill Kelly
114.1 (Sept. 1, 2017): p56.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
* The World of Tomorrow. By Brendan Mathews. Sept. 2017. 560p. Little, Brown, $28 (9780316382199); e-book, $13.99 (9780316382205).
Francis Dempsey, on furlough from prison to attend his father's funeral with his seminarian brother Michael, escapes with help from the IRA. When an accidental explosion at a safe house-and-bomb factory leaves three dead and Michael shell-shocked, Francis books passage for him and Michael, posing as Scottish royalty and aided in their ruse by a trunk full of stolen IRA money. The plan is to reunite with eldest brother Martin, who is trying to make a name for himself in the burgeoning New York jazz scene while struggling to support his wife and young children. Francis sets to courting the daughter of an industrial titan, while impaired Michael, accompanied by the ghost of William Butler Yeats, gets lost in the city and befriended by Lily Bloch, a Czech photographer hoping to delay her return to Nazi-occupied Prague. The IRA wants its money back, but the local boss sees an opportunity to use Francis and his assumed aristocratic identity in an assassination plot when English royalty visit the 1939 Worlds Fair, dubbed the World of Tomorrow. As everything rolls toward an adrenaline-fueled finale, Mathews brilliantly creates characters who embody the esprit de corps of immigrants and movingly explores themes of class, society, race, and family. For fans of Michael Chabon and E. L. Doctorow.--Bill Kelly
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Kelly, Bill. "The World of Tomorrow." Booklist, 1 Sept. 2017, p. 56. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A509161617/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=520a8c19. Accessed 28 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A509161617
Mathews, Brendan: THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
(June 15, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Mathews, Brendan THE WORLD OF TOMORROW Little, Brown (Adult Fiction) $28.00 9, 5 ISBN: 978-0-316-38219-9
Mathews' colorful debut novel examines the legacy of Irish political violence for a family in both the old country and New York during one busy week in 1939.Francis Dempsey, who has been jailed for selling banned books and luxury items, gets a furlough from Dublin's Mountjoy Jail for his father's funeral. There, he is joined by his unhappy seminarian brother, Michael, and several old Irish Republican Army buddies of his father's, who rig an escape for the brothers that involves an IRA bomb factory. There, an accidental explosion leaves Michael shellshocked and the brothers in possession of a Republican war chest. Francis uses the money to present himself as a Scottish lord and books passage for himself and his brother to New York on the RMS Britannic. His fake title leads Francis to a wealthy Manhattan girlfriend and a dangerous role in a New York mob boss's plans. Michael's dazed state leads to a fascinating relationship with the restless ghost of the recently deceased William Butler Yeats. Meanwhile--and there's a lot of meanwhile in this busy doorstop--a third Dempsey brother, Martin, who has been in New York for 10 years, is trying to get a jazz band together for his sister-in-law's wedding reception and impress recording legend John Hammond. But the bride-to-be, who performs synchronized swimming as an AquaBelle at the World's Fair, is having second thoughts about her nuptials after a night at the Plaza Hotel with Francis. Among the many splashes of New York atmosphere, the strongest are snapshots of the city's prewar musical frenzy. Weaving through it all is an old IRA enforcer with a tragic tie to the Dempseys who found escape on an upstate New York farm until the mob boss forces him to find the war chest and Francis. Mathews' debut shows impressive control of this narrative cornucopia, although his reliance on characters' thoughts to propel the plot can be tiresome. It's not Doctorow's Ragtime, but there's a similar feel in this impressive, wide-ranging debut.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Mathews, Brendan: THE WORLD OF TOMORROW." Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495427984/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=adf623f2. Accessed 28 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495427984
The World of Tomorrow
264.20 (May 15, 2017): p34.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
* The World of Tomorrow
Brendan Mathews. Little, Brown, $28 (560p) ISBN 978-0-316-38219-9
Three Irish brothers tumble through New York during an eventful two weeks in June 1939, in Mathews's masterful debut novel. Francis, temporarily released to attend his father's funeral from the prison where he was being held for distributing pornographic literature, is in possession of some IRA cash he bungled into in the wake of a bomb blast. Francis has conceived an audacious plan to make it to America posing as a Scottish aristocrat, and is turning a few American heiresses' heads in the process. With him is his brother Michael, on leave from the seminary for the same funeral, who was shell-shocked by the explosion that netted Francis his money and has struck up a friendship with the ghost of Irish poet William Butler Yeats. Their older brother, Martin, is already in New York, where he is trying to make a living as a jazz musician, to the chagrin of his politically connected in-laws. Once reunited, the brothers are pursued by Cronin, a former IRA hit man who has retired to a farm on the Hudson River, and his menacing boss Gavigan, who concocts a sinister plan involving the visit of the British royalty to the World's Fair being held at that time in New York. Despite its length, this novel is a remarkably fast and exhilarating read, reminiscent of Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Like a juggler keeping multiple balls in the air, Mathews regularly adds new characters and their complicated stories to the volatile mix, without losing track of the original ones. With the wit of a '30s screwball comedy and the depth of a thoroughly researched historical novel, this one grabs the reader from the beginning to its suspenseful climax. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary. (Sept.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The World of Tomorrow." Publishers Weekly, 15 May 2017, p. 34. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A492435602/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c3762693. Accessed 28 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A492435602
Book Word: Intrigue, deception and wonder in this big 'World'
John Freeman Gill
(Sept. 5, 2017): News:
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Byline: John Freeman Gill
The World of Tomorrow
By Brendan Mathews
Little, Brown. 552 pp. $28
---
"The World of Tomorrow," the affable debut novel by Brendan Mathews, begins neither here nor there. All is in transition. It's 1939, World War II is imminent, and we join the story aboard the MV Britannic en route from the Old World to the New. In the first-class dining room, Sir Angus MacFarquhar, "a Scottish Mr. Darcy," is busy charming a table of wealthy Americans with his witty repartee. Angus' real name is Francis Dempsey, however, and he is neither an aristocrat nor even a Scotsman; he is an impetuous Irish jailbird with a bagful of cash swiped from the Irish Republican Army.
The possibility of dramatic transformation amid historical ferment is at the heart of "The World of Tomorrow," a fat novel stuffed with well-drawn characters grappling with different versions of themselves. For Francis, a purveyor of illegal risquA[c] books, living a double life seems like a surefire method of social advancement. But for his shellshocked younger brother, Michael, a former seminarian, the rupture in his self-conception is far more violent. Michael has been rendered deaf and dumb by the same accidental explosion that left several IRA bomb makers dead and their money up for grabs. For him, life is divided into Before and After, and the schism in his identity is so acute that his mind conjures up a companion for him to "speak" with - an aloof white-haired gent who turns out to be the recently deceased Irish poet W.B. Yeats. The scenes of bickering between Michael and Yeats provide some of the book's most pleasurable moments.
As Francis and Michael take up residence in the Plaza Hotel and reunite with their estranged brother, Martin, a jazz musician, the brothers encounter a range of other characters who are also confronting twinned opposites of themselves. Lilly Bloch, a Jewish street photographer, is torn between pursuing her art as a single woman in America and returning to Nazi-occupied Prague, where her lover awaits her. Tom Cronin, a peaceable Upstate farmer, finds himself slipping back into his old role as a hit man for one last job: extinguishing Francis Dempsey.
Mathews is an able prose stylist, and breathing life into so many diverse characters is no mean feat. But the book, like the men and women who populate its pages, is riven by conflicting identities. For all the craft Mathews lavishes on these intricate backstories, the sensational plot that binds the characters together - a tale of gangsters, "One Last Score" and a scheme to murder a world leader - feels like a somewhat facile screen story grafted onto a literary novel. Indeed, Mathews mentions the movies repeatedly, which shakes the reader out of whatever realism has been generated and casts a spotlight on the constructedness of his narrative. The novel's pulpy action climax at the World's Fair, meanwhile, is unconvincing, as its outcome relies on the credulity-straining gullibility of security officials.
If the period and milieu of "The World of Tomorrow" feel familiar, well, that's because they are. Setting a debut novel in 1939 New York and naming it after the theme of the World's Fair is either a bold or derivative act, given the long shadow cast by E.L. Doctorow, the colossus of New York historical fiction. In 1985, Doctorow published "World's Fair," an evocative best-selling novel in which the same 1939 expo figures prominently.
But the two books approach 1939 Gotham in different ways. Doctorow, a Bronx native, wrote a tender, first-person story that reads as deeply felt memoir. "World's Fair" achieves remarkable intimacy by presenting New York through the limited but expanding perspective of a child discovering himself and his city. The visuals are tight shots: close observations of the "strange marks" - swastikas - chalked on the garage doors of the Jewish protagonist's Bronx home, or of the building material from which that house was built - "red brick, which I knew was essential from the tale of the three little pigs."
Mathews, by contrast, opts for a panoramic lens, taking in great swaths of the city and a sprawling cast of characters. Paradoxically, Doctorow's choice to go small made for a bigger book, while Mathews' broad scope diminishes his story's intimacy and the reader's emotional engagement.
Still, Mathews has a flair for bringing street scenes to life, and his hopscotching narrative - from a Harlem jazz joint to a Bowery art studio to a Fifth Avenue palace - makes for an enjoyable tour of a vanished city. "The World of Tomorrow" is an appealing if uneven debut by a promising writer.
---
Gill is the author, most recently, of the novel "The Gargoyle Hunters."
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Gill, John Freeman. "Book Word: Intrigue, deception and wonder in this big 'World'." Washington Post, 5 Sept. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A503577746/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d2acae53. Accessed 28 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A503577746
'The World of Tomorrow' captures swirling New York in 1939
John Freeman Gill
(Sept. 3, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 The Washington Post
Byline: John Freeman Gill
"The World of Tomorrow," the affable debut novel by Brendan Mathews, begins neither here nor there. All is in transition. It's 1939, World War II is imminent, and we join the story aboard the MV Britannic en route from the Old World to the New. In the first-class dining room, Sir Angus Mac -Farquhar, "a Scottish Mr. Darcy," is busy charming a table of wealthy Americans with his witty repartee. Angus's real name is Francis Dempsey, however, and he is neither an aristocrat nor even a Scotsman; he is an impetuous Irish jailbird with a bagful of cash swiped from the Irish Republican Army.
The possibility of dramatic transformation amid historical ferment is at the heart of "The World of Tomorrow," a fat novel stuffed with well-drawn characters grappling with different versions of themselves. For Francis, a purveyor of illegal risquA[c] books, living a double life seems like a surefire method of social advancement. But for his shell -shocked younger brother, Michael, a former seminarian, the rupture in his self-conception is far more violent. Michael has been rendered deaf and dumb by the same accidental explosion that left several IRA bomb makers dead and their money up for grabs. For him, life is divided into Before and After, and the schism in his identity is so acute that his mind conjures up a companion for him to "speak" with -- an aloof white-haired gent who turns out to be the recently deceased Irish poet W.B. Yeats. The scenes of bickering between Michael and Yeats provide some of the book's most pleasurable moments.
As Francis and Michael take up residence in the Plaza Hotel and reunite with their estranged brother, Martin, a jazz musician, the brothers encounter a range of other characters who are also confronting twinned opposites of themselves. Lilly Bloch, a Jewish street photographer, is torn between pursuing her art as a single woman in America and returning to Nazi-occupied Prague, where her lover awaits her. Tom Cronin, a peaceable Upstate farmer, finds himself slipping back into his old role as a hit man for one last job: extinguishing Francis Dempsey.
Mathews is an able prose stylist, and breathing life into so many diverse characters is no mean feat. But the book, like the men and women who populate its pages, is riven by conflicting identities. For all the craft Mathews lavishes on these intricate backstories, the sensational plot that binds the characters together -- a tale of gangsters, "One Last Score" and a scheme to murder a world leader -- feels like a somewhat facile screen story grafted onto a literary novel. Indeed, Mathews mentions the movies repeatedly, which shakes the reader out of whatever realism has been generated and casts a spotlight on the constructedness of his narrative. The novel's pulpy action climax at the World's Fair, meanwhile, is unconvincing, as its outcome relies on the credulity-straining gullibility of security officials.
If the period and milieu of "The World of Tomorrow" feel familiar, well, that's because they are. Setting a debut novel in 1939 New York and naming it after the theme of the World's Fair is either a bold or derivative act, given the long shadow cast by E.L. Doctorow, the colossus of New York historical fiction. In 1985, Doctorow published "World's Fair," an evocative best-selling novel in which the same 1939 expo figures prominently.
But the two books approach 1939 Gotham in different ways. Doctorow, a Bronx native, wrote a tender, first-person story that reads as deeply felt memoir. "World's Fair" achieves remarkable intimacy by presenting New York through the limited but expanding perspective of a child discovering himself and his city. The visuals are tight shots: close observations of the "strange marks" -- swastikas -- chalked on the garage doors of the Jewish protagonist's Bronx home, or of the building material from which that house was built -- "red brick, which I knew was essential from the tale of the three little pigs."
Mathews, by contrast, opts for a panoramic lens, taking in great swaths of the city and a sprawling cast of characters. Paradoxically, Doctorow's choice to go small made for a bigger book, while Mathews's broad scope diminishes his story's intimacy and the reader's emotional engagement.
Still, Mathews has a flair for bringing street scenes to life, and his hopscotching narrative -- from a Harlem jazz joint to a Bowery art studio to a Fifth Avenue palace -- makes for an enjoyable tour of a vanished city. "The World of Tomorrow" is an appealing if uneven debut by a promising writer.
John Freeman Gill is the author, most recently, of the novel "The Gargoyle Hunters."
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Gill, John Freeman. "'The World of Tomorrow' captures swirling New York in 1939." Washingtonpost.com, 3 Sept. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A503463900/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9182ec2b. Accessed 28 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A503463900
The World of Tomorrow
by Brendan Mathews
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Three brothers, a dead father, the Irish mob in New York City, a boatload of stolen IRA money, the 1939 World’s Fair, and one week. Imagine all of this set to a jazz soundtrack. It seems like a lot for one book, doesn’t it? It is. But here’s the wonderful part --- it’s not!
Francis Dempsey is fresh out of an Irish prison, flush with stolen IRA cash, and pretending to be a Scottish Lord who is taking his injured younger brother, Michael, to New York City for treatment. He hopes to find a doctor who can help Michael overcome his debilitating injury, and also would like to connect with their older brother, Martin. What he truly needs, though, is to put as much distance between himself and Ireland as possible following an unfortunate accident with the IRA that injured Michael. On top of hiding that deception, and caring for Michael, he also needs to deliver sad news to Martin --- their father has passed away.
"Oh, yes, there is a lot going on in THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, but all of it flows together so wonderfully.... At first, I was skeptical of the scope and breadth of Brendan Mathew’s ambitious debut novel, but there’s a rich reward at the end."
In New York, Martin is dealing with his own sort of crisis. A jazz musician with a regular house gig, he has decided he’s had enough of playing other people’s music and decides it’s time to act on his own dreams. His wife, however, would prefer to be able to feed and clothe their two young daughters. On top of his own plans --- which he has yet to share with her --- Rosemary is dealing with enough family drama to overflow the Hudson River.
Francis and Michael make it to New York and have the good fortune to connect with Martin. While a family reunion takes place, word of Francis’ theft gets around, making a lot of people unhappy about the circumstances but more than happy to settle some long overdue family scores. Francis knew his prison escape and IRA run-in would eventually catch up with him, but he didn't expect it to happen so quickly. Having convinced himself that stealing from the IRA was the right thing to do, he knows that he’s still going to have to pay, but he never imagined what the price would be.
With the three brothers reunited, the next seven days change everyone’s lives, even the ones marginally touched by the Dempsey clan. Chance encounters with a talented photographer, an emotionally fragile New York City heiress, and a random psychic round out a week that no one caught in the Dempsey sphere will ever forget.
Oh, yes, there is a lot going on in THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, but all of it flows together so wonderfully. It’s really about three brothers and their father at its core. Family is what drives all three Dempsey boys. Martin, who has been away the longest and with a full life of his own, takes a while to adjust to being the older brother again, but when he does, he clearly isn’t interested in having it any other way. Francis, while he certainly can put on an act, needs more help than he’s willing to admit. Oddly, Michael, dealing with his injury, scared and almost unaware of the world around him, is the one who finds the help they all need.
At first, I was skeptical of the scope and breadth of Brendan Mathew’s ambitious debut novel, but there’s a rich reward at the end. THE WORLD OF TOMORROW is one book you’ll fall in love with easily.
Reviewed by Amy Gwiazdowski on September 21, 2017
'The World of Tomorrow' gyrates with zany energy
Book jacket for "The World of Tomorrow" by Brendan Mathews - Original Credit: (Little, Brown)
Michael UpchurchChicago Tribune
"Maybe this was what life did best, drop you in the middle of a story that you'd have a hard time believing if you saw it between the covers of a book."
So muses the rascal-hero of Brendan Mathews' exuberant debut novel, "The World of Tomorrow." Mathews' book certainly pushes the boundaries of credibility — and has great fun doing it.
Set mostly in New York City in 1939, it tells a tale of an Irish ex-con on the run, a Jewish Czech photographer leery of returning to her recently Nazi-occupied country and a Manhattan jazz musician risking his livelihood to reinvent his career. IRA-connected gangsters serve as villains, while the ghost of W.B. Yeats plays a tricksterlike role. Nouveau riche Manhattanites with marriage schemes complete the picture.
"The World of Tomorrow" opens aboard the MV Britannic, where recent prison escapee Francis Dempsey is masquerading as Sir Angus MacFarquhar, a Scottish lord who's escorting his ailing brother Malcolm to New York for medical treatment.
"Malcolm" is actually Francis' brother, Michael, who's on the lam with him. Michael, unfortunately, was on the scene when Francis accidentally blew up an IRA bomb factory outside Cork. That explosion left Michael deaf and dumb. It also killed three IRA men and put a satchel full of cash in the brothers' hands, allowing them to cross the Atlantic in high style.
On the Britannic, Francis wields his charms on the Bingham family, including susceptible young daughter Anisette. In New York, he and Michael ensconce themselves at the Plaza, where Francis carries on his Sir Angus charade. They hope to rendezvous with their brother, jazz musician Martin Dempsey, who, we learn, has recently quit his job in a tame hotel orchestra to pursue the "hot jazz" of his dreams. Francis also hopes that by fleeing Ireland and adopting a new identity, he can escape the notice of the Irish authorities and the IRA.
Francis and Michael, amazingly, breeze into the United States without attracting any official attention — but they're not so lucky with the IRA. Onetime hit man Tommy Cronin is called out of retirement by his old boss to recover the money Francis stole and rope him into an assassination plot targeting a highly eminent visitor to the 1939 World's Fair.
Mathews is a wonderful scene-setter, whether he's describing the streets of Manhattan in the wee hours ("steam drifting lazily from a manhole, a splash of neon thrown into a puddle, an after-hours bar whose last diligent drinkers hunched over their highball glasses") or conjuring the glories of then brand-new Rockefeller Center. "Here," Czech photographer Lilly Block observes, "the promise of the modern world had been fixed in place by tons of granite and Indiana limestone."
The gusto of Mathew's prose and vividness of his characters keeps the novel gyrating with zany energy for its first several hundred pages. Francis' pseudo-Scottish aristocratic airs are innately comical as he improvises his way from "iron handcuffs to silver cufflinks." The Binghams' grasping efforts to purchase social advantages for themselves with their riches are stingingly satirical as well.
Lilly, on a fellowship in New York, is a more soulful creation. Agonized by her lover's letters urging her not to return to Nazi-occupied Prague, she tangles with clueless arts foundation bureaucrats and prowls New York with camera in hand, capturing a street life worlds away from the swank surroundings Francis is exploring.
When Michael, accidentally abandoned by his brother, gets lost in lower Manhattan, Lilly takes him under her wing. They make a poignant pair of outsiders trying to find their bearings — Michael unable to communicate with anyone except the ghost of Yeats who dogs his steps from the Plaza to the Lower East Side, and Lilly with a life-or-death decision to make.
The marital pressures faced by Martin and Rosemary, as Martin's musical ambitions come into conflict with his family responsibilities, bring a more grounded dimension to the book. Mathews does a nice job of evoking the give-and-take frustrations involved, exacerbated by Martin's brothers' arrival.
The book loses some of its luster in its last stretch, as plot mechanics and action sequences take over. The final scenes are cinematic, but not as beguiling as the preposterously complicated setup.
Still, Mathews has a big, rambunctious talent that promises great things.
Novelist Michael Upchurch ("Passive Intruder") is the former Seattle Times book critic.
'The World of Tomorrow'
'The World Of Tomorrow' Is A Huge Story, Told Intimately
September 6, 20177:00 AM ET
Jason Sheehan
The World of Tomorrow
The World of Tomorrow
by Brendan Mathews
Hardcover, 560 pages |
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Jason Sheehan knows stuff about food, video games, books and Starblazers. He is currently the restaurant critic at Philadelphia magazine, but when no one is looking, he spends his time writing books about giant robots and ray guns. Tales From the Radiation Age is his latest book.
Brendan Mathews's debut novel, The World of Tomorrow, hides everything about itself right there in the title. It is that rarest of historical novels, a book that catches a moment in a jar, holds it aloft and displays it for what it really is: Somebody else's day before tomorrow, the instant right before the future comes.
Too often (read: almost always), historical novels bend over backwards to present the charming folkways and rustic bewitchery of the past. Or to paint everything with a big brush full of soot and grime and crud. Or to imbue everything with savagery or sweetness. What they forget (or deliberately neglect) is that, just like today, every single person in history has lived facing forward. Has seen tomorrow like a magic trick — unsure of what will come, but watching with equal amounts of skepticism and wonder. And in The World of Tomorrow, Mathews takes a swing at the biggest, ripest, bordering-on-overused symbol of that bold futurism of the past: The 1939 New York World's Fair.
His entire novel takes place over the course of one week in June of that year, culminating at the Fair itself, in a fast-paced finale worthy of a Scorcese long-take. And I love this about the book. I love the bright-eyed joy of it. The meticulous attention to detail that isn't just a 1,000-word digression on mittens or taxi cabs but actually serves the plot. The sense that every single character in it seems somehow infected with this sense that the past is a curse that must be borne only until tomorrow comes.
In 'World Of Tomorrow,' A Novelist Found Echoes Of 1939, Today
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In 'World Of Tomorrow,' A Novelist Found Echoes Of 1939, Today
And I like that Mathews made this big book so intimate. That he focused it (more or less) on the adventures of three Irish brothers having what might be either the best or worst week of their lives. Martin is a jazz musician already living in New York, making nightly tours of the scene and trying very hard to put a band together that will vault him out of obscurity. Francis is a small-time crook who begins the novel in jail in Ireland for distributing pornographic postcards and banned luxury items. Released on furlough for his father's funeral, he meets the third brother Michael (studying at seminary and similarly freed for the day) then, in rapid succession, the two of them escape the funeral, run from the cops, get in a fight, accidentally blow up an IRA bomb-making factory, make off with a small fortune in cash meant for the cause, pretend to be Scottish, book passage to New York and woo the daughters of some New York elite. Well, Francis does, anyhow. Michael, in the meantime, was shell-shocked during that whole bomb-factory thing and has gone deaf, mute and a little bit bonkers. He spends most of his time having amusing conversations with the ghost of W.B. Yeats.
The oddest thing about 'The World of Tomorrow' is how, when you're down in it — glasses on, pages flipping — it seems perfectly reasonable ... Tighten the pacing a little, add a couple one-liners and a Benny Hill soundtrack, and the whole thing could work as a madcap road-trip story.
Okay, breathe. It's not as ... I don't know. It's not quite as antic as it sounds. The oddest thing about The World of Tomorrow is how, when you're down in it — glasses on, pages flipping — it seems perfectly reasonable. Like a serious literary novel about the weight of history and the promise of tomorrow made by America to all those who made it to her shores back in the day. But when you look up and try to take the measure of the thing, there's just something about it that makes you feel like Mathews almost wanted to write a comedy. Like he made it deliberately broad and deliberately strange and deliberately full of slamming doors and mistaken identities in a way that walks right up to the edge of silly before stepping back and putting its serious face back on. Tighten the pacing a little, add a couple one-liners and a Benny Hill soundtrack, and the whole thing could work as a madcap road-trip story.
And Mathews knows it, because he counterweights the adventures of the Dempsey brothers with Cronin, the reluctant IRA assassin haunted by his past and tasked with putting two in Francis and getting the money back. He does it with Lilly, the Czech artist and photographer fighting deportation back to Prague which, in 1939, is not a place anyone without a tiny mustache wants to be. And to a certain extent with Rosemary, Martin's long-suffering wife. Whose sister, Peggy, is about to get married — an event paid for by her powerful, politically-connected father, at which Martin's new band will be playing their debut gig.
And on and on and on like this. One of the strengths of Mathews's story is the way it sprawls and loops. It finds odd little corners of time and place and character to get into and, in those corners, it finds both a balancing seriousness and a wideness of vision that makes it somehow all okay. Because tomorrow, in Mathews's world, isn't owned by any one viewpoint and it doesn't offer only one promise. It looks different depending on who's doing the looking.
And what they're looking for.
A Debut Novel Imagines Political Intrigue at the 1939 World’s Fair
By KEVIN BAKERSEPT. 13, 2017
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THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
By Brendan Mathews
560 pp. Little, Brown & Company. $28
Brendan Mathews’s first novel, “The World of Tomorrow,” is admirably fearless, daring to tread territory staked by no less than E.L. Doctorow’s finest work, the 1985 novel-cum-memoir “World’s Fair.” Mathews’s is a long book, full of back story and digression, which is no knock on it per se; for what is a good novel — or a good life — but a long series of digressions?
Unfortunately, Mathews’s work also demonstrates another truism about a novel, which is that writing one is like setting off into a trackless wood. The slightest misreading of your compass can leave you lost in the trees, many miles from where you wanted to go.
With commendable ambition, Mathews attempts to combine a serious story with a great lark. “The World of Tomorrow” starts with Francis Dempsey, a redheaded rogue of an Irishman faking his way across the Atlantic in first class as a Scottish lord. It is the summer of 1939, and Francis has recently escaped from a Dublin prison — where he was serving hard time for selling French postcards and pornographic books like “Ulysses” — after he was allowed, under guard, to attend the funeral for his enigmatic schoolteacher father. There, he and his younger brother, Michael (enduring his own incarceration of sorts in a Catholic seminary), are abruptly sprung by a mob of their dad’s old I.R.A. pals, whom they never knew existed.
A wild ride ensues across the Irish countryside, to a safe house that turns out to be not so safe. Francis accidentally detonates the explosives inside, leaving him with a small fortune in stolen funds, an addled and deafened Michael and several inconvenient bodies to put as far behind them as possible. Francis — now “Angus” — decides to light out for the States under what he calls “the First-Class Plan,” audaciously traveling in as posh a manner as possible. He appropriates the title of a highland lord from “Macbeth” and explains that he is taking the muddled Michael — now “Malcolm” — to see if a specialist in New York can do anything about his brother’s awful fox-hunting accident.
So far, so good. But everything bogs down once the brothers reach Amerikay.
Francis’ ostensible goal is finding their older brother Martin, now a jazzman living with his family in the Bronx. They are able to reach him, all right, but for various reasons Francis continues with the First-Class Plan, setting himself and Michael up in a vast suite in the Plaza Hotel. Francis/Angus is still pitching woo to a naïve, comely heiress he flirted with aboard ship, but whom he may now really love, because she is so magnificent a violinist that her playing moves him to tears (beauty and wealth apparently not being what they once were in the old romance department).
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Then Tommy Cronin, a hard man from the I.R.A., is sent by a mobster chieftain named Gavigan. Francis lets blab about his heiress connection — including his promise to her family that he will introduce them to his “cousin,” the queen of England, when they visit “The World of Tomorrow,” the world’s fair recently opened in Queens. Gavigan decides this is an excellent opportunity to have Francis go all Gavrilo Princip on their Britannic majesties and shoot the king dead. He threatens to execute every Dempsey extant if Francis refuses, and has Cronin put him through a crash course on regicide.
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Francis grimly sets about this task while his brothers remain conveniently oblivious. Martin, hired to provide the music for his sister-in-law’s wedding on the same day as the royal visit, is hoping to turn the gig into a new start for his lagging career. Michael, still fuzzy, wanders about Manhattan under the aegis of the Jewish-Czech photographer Lilly Bloch and the shade of William Butler Yeats (yes, you read that correctly).
It would be nice to say that hilarity ensues, but it doesn’t. The main problem is the assassination scheme. It’s not the counterfactual plot to kill a historical character that is hard to swallow; Frederick Forsyth demonstrated a long time ago, in his thriller “The Day of the Jackal,” just how well that could be done. It’s the idea that any of the principals in this assassination plot, including Gavigan himself, would really imagine they could succeed.
As a result, the scheme becomes a needless distraction from more pressing concerns of plot, period and character. The real I.R.A. was close to moribund at this point in history, overshadowed by the horror already beginning to sweep over Europe. That nemesis is at least represented by Lilly Bloch, tormented by whether or not she should go back to her lover in occupied Prague. But Lilly drops out of the narrative for long stretches, as we follow Francis’ shadow of a gunman. If Mathews is trying to show that humans are caught up in their own preoccupations even in the face of the most dire events, fine — after all, the Trump era proves it every day — but the point is muted by his own meanderings as he careens from the picaresque to the thriller.
For far too long, Mathews follows loose plot ends and eccentric minor characters — a psychic, a doctor contractually obligated never to leave his apartment — while sidelining the likes of Lilly and Cronin, the best-drawn characters in the book. And this side of Shakespeare, a ghost is almost never a good idea.
For that matter, Mathews generally seems more interested in the amenities of the Plaza than in the world’s fair of his title. I yield to no man in my love of room service, but it takes more than 300 pages even to make it to Queens, by which time the shenanigans of the Dempsey boys have begun to run thin. Even then, the World of Tomorrow — a singular moment in American history — is snarkily dismissed as promising a future “where every citizen had a home in the clouds and a car on the road. Food grew in abundance under glass-domed orchards, or came flash-frozen, or Wonder-baked, or in strips of bacon fanned like playing cards.”
Yes, how foolish the people of the past were, to not know what we know now!
Mathews, whose short fiction has graced many publications and “The Best American Short Stories,” has talent in buckets. He gives us “gloopy eggs and gristly rashers” for breakfast, and “the sugared fumes rising from the censer” in church. Texts where “each leaf crackled when turned, as if the books had been waterlogged and poorly dried”; and “the syrupy tang of motor oil, the whiskey of petrol” in a garage. Martin’s wife feels “the old routines waiting for her, like a shawl that hung by the door.” Vienna under the Nazis is “buffed to a gleaming carapace of red and black, like painted lips over savage teeth,” while jars in a Chinatown shop feature “shaggy tree bark, tendriled mushrooms, a root that resembled a withered hand.” A Manhattan “skyline had been etched with a chisel and thrown into relief by this shimmering blue blackdrop,” and “buildings were bandoliered by fire escapes that sagged into the street.” He treats us to such wonderful Irish terms as “banjaxed,” “fat-fisted culchies” and “jackeens,” and tells us that “every heart has more than its share of reasons to stop beating.”
Too often, though, he seems to lose interest in his own narrative, slouching into how Martin wants “the golden, Hollywood-bright destiny that all Americans seemed to believe was their due,” while Francis feels his adventures “all sounded like something out of a true-crime novel.” We get such anachronistic analogies as “the vocal equivalent of the ring girl parading across the canvas,” or how Lilly’s mother “could negotiate a sale the way Talleyrand hashed out a treaty.” A musician who “could play like Gabriel himself” craves “the angel’s kiss that elevated Duke and Basie to the jazzman’s Olympus” and ruminates on “one of those gift-of-gab Irishmen who could argue a leprechaun out of his pot of gold.”
Mathews is capable of much better than this. In fact, he is capable of a great deal, and we can only hope it’s not long before he plunges into the woods again.
Kevin Baker is a novelist and historian.
A version of this review appears in print on September 17, 2017, on Page BR15 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: The Plot in America.