Upstate

June 11, 2018
Critic Wood’s second novel (after The Book Against God) is the intriguing, restrained story of Alan Querry, who, in the last days of the second Bush presidency, is summoned by his confrontational older daughter, Helen, from his comfortable home in Northumberland to Saratoga Springs, N.Y. His younger daughter, Vanessa, is a philosophy professor there. Vanessa’s much-younger husband has begun to worry that Vanessa’s depression has become unmanageable. Alan also meets up with Helen, a powerful Sony record executive. Helen and Vanessa have always been opposites, differently damaged by their parents’ divorce. Now the family faces crisis as they debate questions of “spiritual sadness,” ask whether happiness is as inevitable as unhappiness, and struggle to achieve an overdue détente. Wood is at his best when he lets himself go, allowing Alan, whose daughters find him “kind, self-contained, a bit detached,” to complain about modern technology or note the subtle differences between U.S. and U.K. life, or when the narrative allows for Wood to hold forth on popular music and European philosophy; the critical bursts are stronger than the story beats. Though the novel might be a little too careful, it remains a strong performance.