The Savages in Love and War - Softcover

Stewart, Fred Mustard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812561805 ISBN 13: 9780812561807

Publisher: Tor Books, 2002

Synopsis

The Savages in Love and War is the next installment in this riveting historical saga of a powerful family whose lives are played out on the center stage of a new epoch, and whose passions and rivalries shape some of the most memorable events of the twentieth century.

Young Nick Savage came through the Roaring Twenties poorer but unbroken. He's taken on the task of preserving what is left of his family's fortune-and he's helping his new friend, FDR, help the rest of the country do the same. Meanwhile, Nick's sister is in Paris, struggling alongside her aristocratic husband to hold on to the dreams of their youth as they watch political storm clouds from Germany threaten all they love. And in the Far East, the Asian branch of the Savages-descendents of the seafarer Justin Savage and the beautiful Chinese pirate Ching Mei-has come to great respectability, and they must keep what they have so carefully built from being torn away from them by the growing power of the Rising Sun.
The Savages have been flung far and wide, and as the world careens from the excesses of the Jazz Age to the cruel wake-up call of the Great Depression, and reels from the terrors of the first world war to the chilling promises of a second, we follow this family through their heartbreak and triumph.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

A new generation of Savages take center stage as Stewart slickly shepherds his ultra-elite family through the pre-WWII era in this superficial pop history romp. The primary protagonist is Nick Savage, who meets the young FDR as a banker while trying to salvage the family fortune, a connection that later pays off when Roosevelt appoints him ambassador to France in the late 1930s. Savage's equally chaotic love life begins when he marries young to a woman who turns out to be an alcoholic and "a silly shopper," and dies during childbirth. His second wife, an idealistic Englishwoman who unexpectedly inherits a fortune of her own, proves to be the love of his life. Nick's female counterpart in the narrative is his sister-in-law, Gloria, an aging actress and widow of an Indiana industrialist now burdened with caring for her problematic young twins, Mark and Sebastian, the former dying after a bout with polio by talking his brother into helping him commit suicide. Stewart's prose reads quickly and glibly; the early sections especially are full of lazy writing in which characters narrate events in place of genuine action. Nick Savage's adventures in Europe are woefully unrealistic, particularly when he joins his sister, Brooks, in the Resistance, and a subplot set in Asia is designed only to complete the historical time line. Gloria's adventures are slightly more entertaining, but most of the novel reads like a bad cross between a bodice ripper, a History Channel bromide and an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. The result is an instantly forgettable book that falls way below such Stewart standards as The Mephisto Waltz.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Stewart continues to chronicle the international adventures of the far-flung Savage clan. From New York to Paris to Hong Kong, various members of this strikingly cosmopolitan family are involved in a dazzling array of business, political, and social concerns. Assuming patriarchal status from a rapidly declining Johnny Savage, young Nick attempts to resuscitate both the moribund Savage fortune and his own ailing love life during the lean Depression years. Finance, however, takes a back seat to intrigue and diplomacy when he becomes ambassador to Germany on the eve of World War II. Meanwhile, sister Brook and her aristocratic French husband join the Resistance, and the Savage cousins attempt to overcome the Japanese threat to their Asian enterprises. As the Savages survive the vagaries of war, the stage is set for the next generation to weather their own personal and financial storms. This is another satisfying installment in a juicy dynastic saga. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0812561805
• ISBN 13: 9780812561807
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352