The Partisan

Jonas Collingwood, a prolific novelist, finds his life changing when a corporation takes over the press that publishes his works and asks him to pen a book about his World War II experiences. By the author of The Plagiarist.

Once again, Cheever (The Plagiarist, 1992) chronicles life with a distinguished writer--in a novel that's even more diffuse than his first. Not nearly as funny as it thinks it is, this hurried fiction sets off in all sorts of directions, and never finds its way back. Nelson Collingwood, a 20-year-old virgin, and his sexually advanced sister live with their guardians, Aunt Elspeth and Uncle Jonas, in Westchester. Jonas is a much-admired but always broke novelist who rents a house on the Rockefeller estate, where he imposes his high-cultural view of things (e.g., no TV). After 16 novels with a small publisher known primarily for farm equipment catalogues, Jonas receives a huge advance for a WW II memoir, which his new publisher hopes will be his breakout book--the only problem being some doubt about Jonas's actual involvement in the war. Meanwhile, NYU student Nelson, an aspiring ad-copywriter, works for the summer at a local freebie ad paper, all the while pining for one Amy Rose, a suburban goddess spending her summer in Washington State. Nelson's ``Goodbye Columbus'' story is soon superseded by strange doings at home, where an obsequious biographer has attached himself to Jonas. All of which forces the family to reexamine its rather odd history, involving Aunt Elspeth's much prettier sister and the true parentage of Nelson and his own sister. While the biographer flatters his way into Jonas's life, Jonas's obnoxious new editor pressures him for a real commercial book. And Jonas delivers in record time so that he can bail out his sister-in-law from a bad debt and also buy Nelson a fancy car, which becomes the vehicle of his accidental death. Cheever fleshes out this elliptical tale with lots of sitcom sarcasm, plenty of bad jokes, and many pointless barbs at the innocent. His animus toward biographers and publishers may be justified, but seems like plain sour grapes here. All in all, a mess. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

YA-An engaging coming-of-age novel. Nelson feels like a "fire sale baby" when he and his sister Narcissus are taken in by an uncle after their adoptive father dies. "Uncle" Jonas, a well-regarded but impecunious and unheralded novelist, is forever casting aspersions on Nelson's abilities and intelligence while depending on him and his sister for aid and comfort. Jonas is not mean, just crusty, and he really is an important part of their somewhat eccentric lives. Nelson describes the summer of 1991, when he is in love with Amy Snodgrass Rose who is in love with David Hitchens who is in love with Gloria Thomas. Since these young people are not even in the same state that summer, his love for Amy is somewhat unresolved. Equally unresolved is his place in his makeshift family, or, in fact, in the world at large. He seems to be cruising through young adulthood without definition or purpose. The events of Nelson's 19th summer and his growing self-awareness form the basis of this funny and bittersweet chronicle. YAs will be drawn in by the subtle yet sharp humor and the everyday predicaments the young man gets himself into in the context of his not-so-everyday family. The tone is light throughout. The end, while sad, is a logical denouement. A thoroughly enjoyable story with little of the depressing and frightening ingredients of much modern fiction.
Susan H. Woodcock, King's Park Library, Burke, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

When not taking classifieds for a weekly advertising giveaway, 20-year-old Nelson Collingwood is looking for love in this bantering tale of fatherhood, deceit and identity. Nelson grew up never feeling fully accepted by his adoptive father, Jonas Aldous Collingwood, the gray-bearded "Hemingway of Westchester," N.Y., who raised him and his sister, Narcissus. When Jonas's publisher asks him to write a memoir of his purported experiences fighting alongside antifascist resisters in Italy during WW II, the stage is set for a cascade of revelations about Jonas's buried past and Nelson's biological parents. The surprises, which come fast and thick in the last 50 pages, make this self-conscious, occasionally amusing novel worth reading. With the gift of witty observation that marked his first novel, The Plagiarist , Cheever mixes suburban satire with social comedy, family tragedy and youthful passions, related in a flip, sometimes self-deprecating narrative voice that often catches the reader off-guard. This is ultimately a moving story about the bonds of tenderness, concealment and cruelty that forge a family.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Cheever followed gracefully in his father's footsteps with his first novel, the "witty and razor-sharp" The Plagiarist ( LJ 4/1/92). His second work features Jonas Collingwood, the author of 17 novels published by a firm that makes most of its money on farm equipment catalogs. When the firm is bought out, Collingwood has to change his style.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Cheever's first novel, The Plagiarist , was about the hapless son of a hard-drinking, vitriolic writer. The Partisan not only echoes its predecessor's title, but also features the hapless son of an acid-tongued writer. Shades of Cheever's youth? No matter. The domestic situation portrayed here is far more convoluted and intriguing than in his first book, and Cheever's wit has grown even sharper. He has perfected a voice that blends breeding and decorum with wild exaggeration. Our hero and marvelously insouciant narrator, Nelson, is a 19-year-old virgin whose younger sister, Narcissus, has already surpassed him both in pursuing love and in handling their relentlessly derisive adoptive father, Jonas Collingwood. Jonas is an obscure novelist who, for years, was published by a firm that specialized in farm-machinery catalogs. Suddenly, and disconcertingly, his contract is sold to a more literary concern; he's offered a great deal of money for a memoir recounting his experiences fighting the Fascists in Italy; and a snoopy biographer has appeared, bearing gifts. As family secrets are revealed and Nelson loses his innocence, Cheever, bless him, keeps us laughing. Donna Seaman