All the Beautiful People We Once Knew

June 1, 2017
Another novel about big, bad corporate America.In this tepid debut, Carlson, a New York shipping lawyer, draws on his insider's experience with corporate law firms to reveal the depths to which they will sometimes sink in order to win. The story is narrated by Stephen Harker, a lawyer at WorldScore, a massive New York City firm whose motto seems to be "let's make as much money as we can, screw the little guys, and laugh while doing it." A lefty among right-wingers, Harker is paid well and gets lots of free booze and food, but now he's "morphing into a new species." So much destruction: "My ability to lawyer had disintegrated into zeros and ones." The little guy here is former Special Forces pilot Maj. Mike "Bud" Thomas, who is seeking workers' compensation for wartime employment in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he worked for FreedomQuest, a private military contractor. His injuries, including psychological ones, are numerous. Harker is told by his boss, Robert Fleeger, the "big kahuna," that the company is counting on him to win this one. Harker's the "tip of the spear here so don't let us down." To win, he will have to "impeach the man's credibility and tarnish his brass." Meanwhile, Harker and Kath O'Shaughnessy, Fleeger's ex-wife, a "Givenchy model in a Penthouse ad," have a thing going on. Will Harker change his stripes and let Thomas win? Or will he toe the line for his greedy employer? The book is written in an excessively conversational, slangy style. Lots of incomplete sentences. Business terms. Legalese. Appropriate swaths of swear words at the right time. The characters are thin and stereotypical and the slight plot loses its way. But kudos to first-time novelist Carlson for taking on a complicated subject that is timely and significant. Overwritten.

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July 1, 2017
Steven Harker is having an existential crisis. He loathes his soul-draining job as an associate litigator at the Kilgore firm nearly as much as he does his womanizing, boorish boss, Fleeger. When Kilgore's largest client, Worldscore, an insurance giant, assigns Fleeger and Harker the task of denying an injury claim to a Special Forces veteran, Harker faces the slippery slope into moral depravity. Complicating matters further is Harker's burgeoning affair with Fleeger's soon-to-be ex-wife, Kath. Although none of these characters are particularly likable, lawyer and first-time novelist Carlson's ability to capture each of their insecurities creates an element of empathy. Carlson's controlled authorial voice is further enlivened by clever wordplay and a Delilloan obsession with etymology and news stories. Carlson deftly steers clear of a cliched good-versus-evil, David-versus-Goliath plot as he provides a nuanced exploration of the questionable motivations of all parties. The result is a more satisfying, Franzenian interplay of politics and class with hints of the stylistic reportage of Tom Wolfe. For fans of the aforementioned authors as well as later Bret Easton Ellis.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)