A Wonderful Stroke of Luck
A Novel
-
-
3.0 • 4 Ratings
-
-
- $4.99
-
- $4.99
Publisher Description
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2019 by Vulture, The Millions, The Observer, and O, The Oprah Magazine
A razor-sharp, deeply felt new novel--the twenty-first book by Ann Beattie--about the complicated relationship between a charismatic teacher and his students, and the secrets we keep from those we love
At a boarding school in New Hampshire, Ben joins the honor society led by Pierre LaVerdere, an enigmatic, brilliant, yet perverse, teacher who instructs his students not only about how to reason, but how to prevaricate. As the years go by, LaVerdere's covert and overt instruction lingers in his students' lives as they seek some sense of purpose or meaning. When Ben feels the pace of his life accelerating and views his intimate relationships as less and less fulfilling, there seems to be a subtext he's not able to access. And what, really, did Bailey Academy teach him?
While relationships with his stepmother and sister improve, and a move to upstate New York offers respite from his anxiety about love and work, LaVerdere's reappearance in his life disturbs his equilibrium. Everything he once thought he knew about his teacher--and himself--is called into question. Written by one of our most iconic writers, known for casting a cold eye on her generation's ambivalence and sometimes mistaken ambition, A Wonderful Stroke of Luck is a keenly observed psychological study of a man who alternates between careful driving and hazardous risk taking, as he struggles to incorporate his past into the vertiginous present.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Beattie's discursive, unfocused novel (following The Accomplished Guest) chronicles the coming-of-age of Ben, an intelligent teenager who, as the book opens, is studying at an elite New Hampshire boarding school called Bailey Academy. In the months before and after 9/11, he pines for his alluring fellow student LouLou Sils, copes with his fragmented family, and joins the group that congregates around enigmatic philosophy teacher Pierre LaVerdere. After graduation from Bailey and then Cornell, Ben eddies through a series of unsatisfactory jobs, fleeting sexual encounters, and a relationship with a troubled young woman named Arly. After he moves to a small town in 2011, LouLou, LaVerdere, and his family reveal themselves in new and challenging ways. Beattie's depiction of the aimless and largely unremarkable Ben is overshadowed by the detail lavished on scores of vivid minor characters who pass briefly through his life. LaVerdere, whose interactions with Ben frame the novel, is also unsatisfying: pretentiously cerebral and verbose, he feels implausible as either a defining influence in his students' lives or the dramatically problematic man who emerges at the novel's close. As always, Beattie offers sharp psychological insights and well-crafted prose, but the novel lacks the power and emotional depth of her best work.)
