Dinner and
Acknowledgments
May brought the Man Book Club Teddy Wayne's The Winner — a beach read and male bodice ripper with aspects of The Great Gatsby's class anxiety and a relationship between a young man and an older woman harkening back to The Graduate. The Winner was not a winner in the eyes of the MBC, but it did earn several positive reviews as a quick summer read.
There was one clear winner last Tuesday: our host, Dan. After starting us off with oysters on the half shell and gin and tonics, he delivered a full east coast seafood feast — crab and lobster rolls, split pea soup, and Cape Cod potato chips — finished off with his secret-recipe homemade chocolate chip cookies.
Our Review and Discussion of The Winner
Dan led off the discussion by admitting he had preferred two of the other four books he'd proposed — The Greatest Beer Run Ever by John "Chick" Donohue and The Greatest Player Who Never Lived: A Golf Story by J. Michael Veron. But following the MBC's democratic ranked-choice voting, Dan embraced the club's selection and found The Winner entertaining, particularly enjoying how the protagonist, Conor, appears to have gotten away with murder.
Tom also found it an easy read full of excitement. He enjoyed how Conor, the handsome young tennis pro, finds a wealthy older divorcée with a strong libido willing to help finance his summer after law school. Conor carried the story even as his honesty remained constantly in question. Tom found the plot flowed well and liked it overall.
Larry did not like the book. He found Wayne's writing reductive, relying on labels rather than descriptive prose. He cited as an example how Wayne dispenses with two local boys by describing one as having "red acne peppering his thick neck" and the other as his "dim-looking sidekick." Larry felt the first part of the novel seemed an attempt to rewrite The Great Gatsby, while the second part was essentially a procedural account of how someone might get away with murder. But nowhere, in his view, did Wayne demonstrate real literary sker dim.
Paul drew a comparison between Conor and Catherine — the older divorcée — and the relationship between Dustin Hoffman's young character and Anne Bancroft's older woman in The Graduate. Paul had little patience for the male characters who inhabit Cutters Neck, and found Conor — for all his good looks and ambition — honestly rather dim. Though Paul hadn't finished the book, he could see where it was headed and found it hard to push much past the halfway mark.
Andrew found the book modestly enjoyable but felt the author leaned too heavily on class stereotypes. He liked it well enough until the second half, when Conor appears to lose the moral grounding provided by his long-time mentor, Richard--a grounding that gives him a success in tennis and in law school, all while supporting his single mother. Once Catherine enters the picture, Conor abandons his moral compass, driven by lust and, later, a desire to become part of the Cutters Neck crowd.
Roy did not finish the book, but took a dim view of the Conor character.
Terry found the book lightweight — essentially a step-function story of a character's turn toward the pursuit of money. He found the murder unbelievable. Terry did find it ironic that Conor initially views the Cutters Neck set as morally bankrupt, only to become one of them by novel's end. He noted, with some unease, that people like Conor do exist in the world.
Stan called it a great beach read — a well-written page-turner that reminded him of Cape Cod. He did wonder, with some amusement, how Conor ever found time to study for the bar exam given everything else going on, but concluded it was a fun ride.
Our Rating of The Winner
May brought the Man Book Club Teddy Wayne's The Winner — a beach read and male bodice ripper with aspects of The Great Gatsby's class anxiety and a relationship between a young man and an older woman harkening back to The Graduate. The Winner was not a winner in the eyes of the MBC, but it did earn several positive reviews as a quick summer read.
There was one clear winner last Tuesday: our host, Dan. After starting us off with oysters on the half shell and gin and tonics, he delivered a full east coast seafood feast — crab and lobster rolls, split pea soup, and Cape Cod potato chips — finished off with his secret-recipe homemade chocolate chip cookies.
Our Review and Discussion of The Winner
Dan led off the discussion by admitting he had preferred two of the other four books he'd proposed — The Greatest Beer Run Ever by John "Chick" Donohue and The Greatest Player Who Never Lived: A Golf Story by J. Michael Veron. But following the MBC's democratic ranked-choice voting, Dan embraced the club's selection and found The Winner entertaining, particularly enjoying how the protagonist, Conor, appears to have gotten away with murder.
Tom also found it an easy read full of excitement. He enjoyed how Conor, the handsome young tennis pro, finds a wealthy older divorcée with a strong libido willing to help finance his summer after law school. Conor carried the story even as his honesty remained constantly in question. Tom found the plot flowed well and liked it overall.
Larry did not like the book. He found Wayne's writing reductive, relying on labels rather than descriptive prose. He cited as an example how Wayne dispenses with two local boys by describing one as having "red acne peppering his thick neck" and the other as his "dim-looking sidekick." Larry felt the first part of the novel seemed an attempt to rewrite The Great Gatsby, while the second part was essentially a procedural account of how someone might get away with murder. But nowhere, in his view, did Wayne demonstrate real literary sker dim.
Paul drew a comparison between Conor and Catherine — the older divorcée — and the relationship between Dustin Hoffman's young character and Anne Bancroft's older woman in The Graduate. Paul had little patience for the male characters who inhabit Cutters Neck, and found Conor — for all his good looks and ambition — honestly rather dim. Though Paul hadn't finished the book, he could see where it was headed and found it hard to push much past the halfway mark.
Andrew found the book modestly enjoyable but felt the author leaned too heavily on class stereotypes. He liked it well enough until the second half, when Conor appears to lose the moral grounding provided by his long-time mentor, Richard--a grounding that gives him a success in tennis and in law school, all while supporting his single mother. Once Catherine enters the picture, Conor abandons his moral compass, driven by lust and, later, a desire to become part of the Cutters Neck crowd.
Roy did not finish the book, but took a dim view of the Conor character.
Terry found the book lightweight — essentially a step-function story of a character's turn toward the pursuit of money. He found the murder unbelievable. Terry did find it ironic that Conor initially views the Cutters Neck set as morally bankrupt, only to become one of them by novel's end. He noted, with some unease, that people like Conor do exist in the world.
Stan called it a great beach read — a well-written page-turner that reminded him of Cape Cod. He did wonder, with some amusement, how Conor ever found time to study for the bar exam given everything else going on, but concluded it was a fun ride.
Our Rating of The Winner
Beach read or a failed attempt at psychological fiction? The MBC wanted it to be both, and that ambivalence showed in the scores, which ranged from 3 to 8, landing just north of a 6. If you came in expecting no more than a summer read, expectations were met. If you were hoping for serious literature, they were not. The Winner wasn't a true MBC winner — but it entertained, and it gave us plenty to argue about over lobster rolls.
Next Up
We
meet next at Larry's to discuss Captain James Cook's final voyage, as rendered by
Hampton Sides in The Wide Wide Sea. Larry gave us an interesting set of choices, but the topicality of AI (Age of Extraction), the appeal of a recent Booker winner (Flesh), the promise of a Canadian road trip novel (The Passenger Seat), or the chance to finally read Pynchon (Vineland) were not enough to keep us from going back to Sides' tried-and-true formula for nonfiction.
