This sociopolitical comedy of manners concerning a radical lawyer in a coma isbeyond the novelists satiric command.The main problem with the latest from theBrit... » 

This sociopolitical comedy of manners concerning a radical lawyer in a coma isbeyond the novelists satiric command.The main problem with the latest from theBritish Heller What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal 2003 etc. is thatit lacks focus. It could have focused on Joel Litvinoff a famous activistattorney described by those who despise him as a rentaradical with a longhistory of unAmericanism but hes unconscious in his hospital bed for thebulk of the book. It wants to focus on his wife Audrey like the novelist aBritishborn transplant to New York whom the older Joel seduces in London whenshe is 18 and who remains married to him for 40 years. The problem is thatAudrey is the least compelling character with little explanation as to how shehas become such a doctrinaire radical harridan much more rigid than herhusband a champagne socialist hypocrite and unloving mother to her twodaughters. Maybe Karla and Rosa the daughters estranged from each other couldhave provided the focus. The former is a heavy goodhearted woman who mustchoose between her loveless marriage and an improbable affair. The latter ismore attractive and resents the superficiality of her beauty she is anextremist in everything she does having returned from four years in Cuba toembrace or at least investigate the Judaism her parents long ago rejectedand which runs counter to her own feminism. Unfortunately their stories onlyconnect at the bedside of their comatose father a center that cannot hold.Adopted son Lenny from an even more radical family mainly provides comicrelief as his mothers marijuana supplier until he cleans up. What promises topropel the narrative is Joels deep secret revealed while he is unconsciousbut even that seems on the periphery before its unlikely resolution providessomething of a climax.Tom Wolfe might once have had vicious fun with suchmaterial but this novel lacks the edge to make it sharper than soap opera.Kirkus Reviews «