Dan Silas returns to America for his high school reunion where he makes some unexpected discoveries. His former girlfriend tells him that her daughter was his child and Dan's oldest friend has suffered a breakdown and now believes himself to be the reincarnation of an Indian chief. In an attempt to make sense of these disturbing facts, Dan digs further into their lives, with both tragic and comic results. LEADING THE CHEERS is a rich portrayal of small-town life with wonderfully evoked characters and Justin Cartwright's beautifully observed writing.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
For travelers, history has a way of appearing crystallized. It's all too easy, when visiting someone else's country, to discern the links between the ideas of the past and the way people live now. And in Justin Cartwright's Leading the Cheers, London ad man Dan Silas is happy to make such links. British by birth, he attended high school briefly in Michigan, then returned to his native soil. Now his class has asked him to be the keynote speaker at their 30th reunion. Dan is in just the right mood to make such a trip; he's recently sold his wildly successful agency and broken up with his young girlfriend. "What carried me far in advertising was a glib up-to-dateness, and its roots obviously go back a long way. It is this cheapness which I am endeavouring to slough off. I will avail myself, without cynicism, of the offer to buy a commemorative brick from the old high school."
For Dan, America has come to represent a kind of lost, earnest innocence: you can practically hear the fife-and-drum music in the background as he rolls into town for the reunion. No less rosy are his memories of his best friend, Gary, and his high-school sweetheart, Gloria, with whom he first coupled on Thomas Jefferson's bed at Monticello on a class field trip. "In my memory, Gloria and Monticello are for ever joined." But now she claims he fathered a daughter that fateful afternoon, a daughter who's been murdered by a serial killer. Meanwhile, Gary has gone off the deep end, convinced he's an Ojibway Indian and leading ceremonies in a tipi in his mom's backyard. Dan's attempt to reconcile his Edenic memories with the bitter realities wrought by 30 years of history yield a singularly woeful comic novel. At times Justin Cartwright's narrative seems filigreed with ideas and ironies; at other times it seems concerned, quite simply, with one man who learns that his "version of what goes on is certainly faulty." --Claire Dederer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Though Cartwright's (The Face I Meet) story of a British man's return to the America of his high school years won England's Whitbread Award in 1998, it is likely to read less well on this side of the Atlantic, with its intermittently patronizing depiction of middle America. Dan Silas, a London-based former advertising executive whose professional and personal life is in disarray, returns to Hollybush, Mich., for his 30th high school reunion. He reunites with his old girlfriend Gloria, who informs him not only that is he is the father of her daughter, but that the daughter has been killed by a serial killer. He discovers as well that his beloved friend Gary, unbalanced since a breakdown during his freshman year at Harvard, believes himself to be Pale Eagle, a 19th-century follower of Tecumseh. Eager to connect with his old circle and to be moved by the generous, large-scale emotions that he feels are quintessentially American, Silas agrees to visit Gloria's daughter's killer in prison, and he also steals valuable Native American artifacts from a London museum for Gary. But Silas's unhesitating commitment to his classmates sits uneasily with his sense that he is "in the middle of nature with amiable morons." Gloria, whose "breasts have welded into a bosom" works at the biggest Christmas store in the country, populated by "frolicsome... very fat people"; Duane, another old acquaintance, has a "potato-dumpling look." Silas's obsession with aging, neglected bodies can be construed as an attempt at pathos; but since he never subjects himself to similar scrutiny, they seem to bespeak an author's contempt for the overfed flipside of American generosity rather than a damaged expatriate's uneasy reunion with people he once deeply loved. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining, perceptive, intelligent,
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This review is from: Leading the Cheers (Hardcover)
Leading the Cheers is a quick and entertaining read which manages to cover a lot of bases. Underlying the plotline is the revelation that we view the world through only one set of eyes - that our subjective picture of reality might be little more than a self-serving illusion.Reviews praise the book as "hilarious" and "funny", whereas I'd probably say "amusing" or "ironic". Cartwright has an intelligent and sharp sense of humor, but it is definitely of drier/more ironic nature than is implied by these descriptions; this was not a book that made me laugh. That said, this was a lively and compelling novel with interesting, well-developed characters and a good mix between plot and introspection. The storyline involves a successful British ad executive's return to Michigan, his childhood home, to attend his high school reunion. Although he has never questioned his interpretation of the events of his youth he suddenly finds himself faced with a number of questions. Things aren't always as they seem. Along the way we get some sharp insights on middle-American culture, Indian rituals, and the meaning of "success" and "failure". A quirky cast of characters includes a lanky descendant of Northern European immigrants who following his nervous breakdown during his freshman year at Harvard channels the spirit of a long dead Native American called Pale Eagle; a serial killer serving a life sentence; and a group of former high school cheerleaders and jocks facing middle age stranded in their small-town environment. Other reviewers have pointed out some factual inconsistencies, which I honestly would not have noticed. Regardless, I enjoyed Cartwright's eye for detail and well-crafted descriptions. A thought-provoking and original novel.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Recommended.,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Leading the Cheers (Hardcover)
The inside dust jacket describes this book as "witty and often hilarious" with a "shocking denouement." I'm not sure I agree with any of those descriptions, but I nevertheless found the book moving and enjoyed it immensely. Very thought-provoking, with a number of interesting themes running throughout. I also agree with the "Literary Review" comment to the effect that this is a rare book about "the kind of America nobody (read: none of us upper-crust coastal snobby intellectuals) knows or cares about." I would certainly recommend it. With respect to the reviewer who commented on the apparent inconsistency between 1996 and 1998, it was my sense throughout that the book was taking place in 1996, not only because of the Clinton-Dole campaign, but because of other references as well. I would concede that a 28th-year reunion is somewhat odd, but I just don't recall Dan ever actually describing it as a 30-year reunion, although he does say that the class President has kept in pastoral touch with the class for "nearly 30 years." If in fact I missed the reference to a 30-year reunion, then I would agree that that is more than a minor flaw, given the importance placed on dates in the book.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The prodigal returns,
By
This review is from: Leading the Cheers (Hardcover)
Dan Silas spent his formative years in Hollybush, Michigan. Now resident in a committee run London executive estate, he finds his past calling back to him. Dan is to be a speaker at his high school reunion, thirty years after he's left. Called to speak because he's become something of a success in his home country, and because he's practically the only one of his high school chums to have really left. In the middle of a separation which hurts him less than it should, Dan's return to Hollybush makes him realise a few certain truths. Features of this introspection are the encroaching insanity of his friend, who has gone native under the name of Gary Pale Eagle, a sexual encounter in Jefferson's bed, and the revelation that he had a daughter, brutally murdered by a serial killer.This is a very American novel. All aspects of American and western life come under a subtle but penetrating gaze. There is a discourse on Emerson's notion of self running throughout this novel. Cartwright, born a South African, presents an extremely vivid portrait of a contemporary English man. What better device than to set such a character out into America? Accent is very relevant to this novel, and accent is strong and flowing, mutable, a metaphor for self. Devastating declarations arise, and you feel horror on behalf of the narrator, who declines to comment, since such things are deigned to be self evident. Deprecating humour abounds too. Sometimes, 'Leading the Cheers' feels like the Coen Brothers' Fargo. A homely portrait of American life with engaging characters, mixed with pure horror. It all rings so true, despite the fact that it's mere composition. I've earflapped the pages which speak to me, so that I can find my way back to them in the future. Quite appropriately, it also involves the narrative tracking of a journey, with Gary Pale Eagle willing to steal for clues.
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