Last of the Old Guard

September 22, 2008
“Private papers left by the dead may present difficult problems for the survivor,” Auchincloss writes in his latest chronicle of the WASP wealthy, and they do for Adrian Suydam, “an American gentleman of the old school,” who sets about writing the biography of his deceased corporate law partner, Ernest Saunders. It's 1944, and grand old New York is in its full glory as Adrian digs into Ernest's past (and, by virtue of their close relationship, his own), touching on muffled scandals that could threaten “the old order of the wellborn and highly educated.” The tone is cool and reserved as Adrian examines how Ernest's passionate devotion to the firm—founded in 1883—precludes him from finding true love and how his colleague foresees the loss of “the homogeneity, the esprit de corps, the intimacy” that “the changing conditions of modern law practice” presage. The law partners' friendship constitutes a classic fraternal love story, and Auchincloss, for all his narrative stuffiness, effortlessly conjures a bygone world of privilege.

October 15, 2008
Auchincloss 's umpteenth (The Headmaster 's Dilemma, 2007, etc.) tells the story of a prestigious Manhattan law firm and the families in its orbit.

Yet another variation on the story he 's been telling for decades, it 's also a moving depiction of an often tested, never abandoned lifelong friendship. Adrian Suydam, scion of a fine old New York family, presents, embellishes and reflects on his published history of the firm of Saunders & Suydam, woolgathering about the life of his partner-mentor Ernest Saunders, a flinty conservative who in old age "achieved a national reputation as the stalwart champion of the old ways. " The more liberal Adrian has always deferred to Ernest 's brilliance and resolve. As he recalls their early years, during which Adrian fought with Teddy Roosevelt 's Rough Riders while Ernest steadfastly acquired professional experience and power, the novel gradually becomes a series of episodes: the brilliant, heartbreakingly brief life of Ernest 's perfect son Mark; the messy, demanding adult lives of both partners ' surviving children; the scandal-ridden and politically significant cases that made the firm 's reputation and sometimes put Saunders and Suydam at odds with each other. Further stories are told in extended "memorandums " written by several major and minor characters; handled woodenly and not credible as the narratives they purport to be, they are the novel 's major flaw. The final chapters are superb, notably the long-withheld story of Ernest 's dignified wife Bessie, whose stoical understanding that she has sacrificed passion for a life of reason and security shakes the compassionate Adrian to his core and may wring tears from the most jaded reader. Auchincloss is our Trollope: a productive, elegant artist whose keen understanding of the small worlds his characters inhabit permits him to examine their surprising variety with an energy undiminished even this late (he is in his 90s) in his brilliant career.

A small masterpiece from an old master whose oeuvre bulks large in our literature and will last.

(COPYRIGHT (2008) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

October 15, 2008
This understated novel recounts the partnership between Ernest Saunders and Adrian Suydam, who founded a New York City law firm in the early 1900s. The story, as told by Adrian, shows how their lives evolved in the social and economic landscape of elite New York society from the Gilded Age through World War II. What is striking here is the subtlety, with Auchincloss ("The Headmaster's Dilemma") precisely delineating some of the great issues of the time by viewing them through a very human lens. As Adrian reconstructs his experiences, he also relates the country's growing pains and its history from an insider's perspective; he even rode with Teddy Roosevelt up San Juan Hill. The firm's clients are some of the most powerful movers and shakers of the day, and Adrian, as both a part of the narrative and a dispassionate observer, speaks with a measured authority that is a pleasure to read. Recommended for public and academic libraries.Henry Bankhead, Los Gatos P.L., CA

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2008
In his eighties, Adrian Suydam is putting together a private memoirthat he hopes will help shed light on the character of his lifelong friend and business partner, Ernest Saunders. Amiable Adrian and brilliant Ernest meet at Harvard and find they complement each other.After lawschool, Adrians money and connections (Theodore Roosevelt is a personalfriend) and Ernests brains are the foundation of Suydam and Saunders. The two men marry and have families; the firm thrives in the years between the wars, times change.Easygoing Adrian adapts, while Ernest, who was once the young turk, finds himself an anachronism. Through it all, they are, as Ernest puts it, inextricably tied.Despite being married, Ernest doesnt care much for women, and early on, Adrian tells usthat though there was nothing homoerotic about his friend, Adrians good looks may have been part ofthe attraction.The reader can explore these undercurrents or not; as usual with Auchincloss, psychological depthlurks beneath a calm surface. In his forty-seventh work of fiction, he delivers a reliablycourtly but morally complex novel of manners.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)