Weekend in New York<\/em>, published in the United States in February of this year, in which Benjamin Markovits introduced the Essinger family. Markovits returns to the concepts of intimacy and loyalties throughout the text (\u201cPart of the point of coming home was the density of association, you seemed to move through a thicker material.\u201d), delivering emotional truths between generations and genders, packed with minutely observed, small moments that are everything\u2014the profound quotidian. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The large and mobile cast is unwieldy but never hard to keep track of. Each character is a complicated, nuanced individual\u2014they could walk right off the page into your kitchen and rummage in the fridge. Markovits employs an egalitarian approach: The story unfolds in multiple third-person narrations; we spend time in each character\u2019s head on a rotating basis. You will find that the point of view with which you were roasting the Christmas goose has switched, mid paragraph, to whomever is mashing the potatoes. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The dialogue around the table is a feat of ellipses, making you suspect that Markovits has been eavesdropping on your family holidays. Being immersed in family also inevitably means tedium\u2014being trapped inside a navel-gazing head is claustrophobic\u2014and too much information. We don\u2019t need to know this much about their toilet habits. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
There are innumerable conflicts in Christmas in Austin<\/em>, both external and internal. Old World European values are baffled by American fetishes; duty and personal fulfillment face-off; old resentments and patterns compete with fresh slights and joys. There are class issues here between the shucks-we\u2019re-just-folks of a certain kind of well-off Americans, the patrician New England, and the glamourous extravagance of Manhattan. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>The Essingers are a privileged tribe of upper-middle class, Ivy League educated Anglos, and they know it. The youngest generation is beginning to wrestle with the implications; the older generation is bewilderedly resistant; while the middle generation acknowledges it, expressing a sort of noblesse oblige, as in this disquieting conversation between Nathan and Paul at a Boxing Day party:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Some of the people here are serious people. You underestimate what it takes to be a person of influence.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nOkay, Paul said.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nAll of us were born into enormous privilege.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019m aware of that.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019m not sure you are. We\u2019re in a position, Nathan began, and then he said: We have the chance to live unusually good lives.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nNot everybody wants to be Judge Kirkendoll.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nBecause they don\u2019t want to do what you have to do.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nBecause they don\u2019t want it, Paul said.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nWell maybe they should. Because if we\u2019re not going to do it, who will? <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Other people. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
It\u2019s possible that the first truly honest conversation happens at the end of the book, and the conflict set in motion evokes real fear and seems to set up another Essinger novel\u2014another big, glorious mess.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Review of Christmas in Austin by Benjamin Markovits <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1108,877,813,1016,830,1109],"class_list":["post-1880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bookreviews","tag-literaryfiction","tag-lone-star-literary-life","tag-lonestarreviews","tag-lonestarliterarycom","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}