The Company You Keep [Hardcover]

Nell Gordon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 26, 2003

With the publication of his highly praised first novel, Sacrifice of Isaac, Neil Gordon proved himself a master of the intellectual thriller. In his new novel, Gordon mixes political turmoil and family drama to deliver a plot that is as intricate as it is compelling.

Based on intensive research into the divisive events of the late sixties and the lives of Weather Underground radicals and Vietnam veterans, The Company You Keep is a story of the ecstatic righteousness of youth and the bonds of family love, of ideals betrayed by violence, and of love sacrificed to history. When his political past catches up with him, one man goes on the run again after thirty-odd years-this time not for political reasons, but for the love of his child. Again he becomes a fugitive, setting in motion an incredible American saga.

Historically rich, morally complex, and emotionally engrossing, The Company You Keep is a dramatic and moving novel in the tradition of works by Tim O'Brien and Tobias Wolff.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The revolutionary politics of the 1960s haunt the complacent domesticity of the 1990s in this engrossing, if sometimes muddled, melodrama of ideas. When limousine-leftist lawyer and single dad Jim Grant is unmasked as Jason Sinai, an ex-Weather Underground militant wanted for a deadly bank robbery, he abandons his daughter and goes on the lam. As he evades a manhunt and seeks out old comrades, the author introduces a sprawling cast of drug dealers, bomb-planting radicals turned leftist academics, Vietnam vets, FBI agents and Republicans who collectively ponder the legacy of the '60s. Gordon (Sacrifice of Isaac) skillfully combines a tense fugitive procedural, full of intriguing lore about false identities and techniques for losing a tail, with a nuanced exploration of boomer nostalgia and regret. Alas, there are a few too many long-winded, semicoherent debates about the radical excesses of the era that inadvertently evoke marijuana-fueled dormitory bull sessions. Through these exchanges (and a little sexual healing), ideological opposites come together over a facile anti-politics of "national reconciliation." Gordon's rueful radicals, having finally outgrown their adolescent outrage over parental hypocrisy, decide that personal loyalty and raising children trump all belief systems and that "none of the principles matter" any longer. Some who lived through the 1960s may take offense at this caricature, but other boomer readers may find the mix of countercultural drama and familial schmaltz a gratifying validation of their life cycle. In either case, it will get them talking.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

A hybrid of political novel, love story, cat-and-mouse thriller... an addictive page-turner of a book. -- Seattle Times

Cerebral, rousing... it bids well to enter the company of our best fiction about the Vietnam era. -- The New York Times Book Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; 1ST edition (June 26, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670032182
• ISBN-13: 978-0670032181
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #627,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A page turner that makes you think, July 7, 2003

By 

Rachel Cline "writer-reader-brooder" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Company You Keep (Hardcover)

This is the kind of book that appears far too seldom: it's smart, it's funny, it's emotionally authentic, and once you get started it's almost impossible to put down. Told by five or so equally engaging narrators, it manages to put the mystery of good parenting AND the moral complexity of America's involvement in the Viet Nam war under the same magnifying lens.

At the heart of the book is the story of Jason Sinai, a man forced to relinquish the underground identity that gave him refuge from prosecution for actions as a member of Weatherman (the SDS faction that sought to "bring the war home" by bombing various U.S. locations). His story is told as a series of emails to his daughter Isabel, who he abandoned (had to abandon?) when she was about six. The emails narrate the events of her father's escape and pursuit, as well as key events during his Weather phase.

Because the various narrators range in age and (to some extent) ideological vantage, the major themes don't lumber in and loom--the way you might anticipate from this short description--but glimmer through in changing guises. "All parents are bad parents," Sinai tells his daughter and though this at first seems like a glib rationale from a probably unreconstructed baby revolutionary, the book ultimately allows us to understand the pain of bad parenting from the parent's point of view as well as the child's. What more do you want from a novel? There are a couple of good twists that you may see coming but which are nevertheless satisfying, and there is great material about the legacy of the sixties at the family level as well as at the level of country, culture, nation, etc.

Obviously, a few paralells with current events also emerge, and make the story more complex and interesting--especially for anyone who grew up in the shadow of hippiedom.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Weather, July 2, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Company You Keep (Hardcover)

The Company You Keep offers plot twists, social ideas, and carefully researched historical detail from the Vietnam era. Each alone would make for a worthwhile reading experience. But at the novel's heart is character. Which deserves one's deepest loyalty: parent or principle, child or country, mother or daughter? Written in a new take on an epistolary form---one that puts the reader in the mind of the intended audience (a character in the book) to sit as judge to the upheaval of the sixties and its consequences---Neil Gordon's novel is a gem. After reading it, you will think differently whenever people talk about the weather.

Robert Redford optioned The Company You Keep for a movie, and it's easy to see why.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When is the Past Past?, September 20, 2003

By 

Bill Pieper, author of the novel WHAT YOU WIS... (Sacramento, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Company You Keep (Hardcover)

Fact and fiction so subtly intertwined that we no longer care which is which and believe one as the other. This is the story of the legendary Weather Underground, yet with quite a fresh twist. Set not in the "glory days" of the 1970s but in 2006, it looks back at more than just the excesses of Weather, its scope is the many changes in the US that this band of unlikely middle-class outlaws foretold. Excellent social observation, strong and completely believable characters, and plenty of narrative drive. What more could readers want?