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This is a somewhat claustrophobic outing for John Banville’s alter ego, Benjamin Black, the less literary side of that gentleman who, nevertheless, manages to present an interesting plot. John Glass, former journalist and son-in-law of dynamic millionaire (at least) businessman "Big Bill" Mulholland, is commissioned by Mulholland to write his biography. Somewhat intimidated by the task, Glass interviews Dylan Riley, a researcher, who resembles a lemur, a creature that Glass misremembers as a rodent. This "lemur" is entertained at the notion of finding out the secrets of Mulholland's past - but Glass is distressed at the possibility that the researcher might just turn up some of his own secrets, especially some current ones, specifically those pertaining to his own extra-marital dalliance. Mulholland (known, within the family by the too cutesy nickname of Billuns) has strong ideas on the topic of marital infidelity and, all at once, Glass repents the enthusiasm with which he hired Riley. How awful it would be were Glass to have to forfeit his enjoyable lifestyle because of what his researcher digs up. Glass has been promised a million dollars by the subject of the biography. Riley, scenting a big profit for his research labours, cloaks blackmail within respectability and demands half a million dollars for his cooperation. Glass, insecure inside the heights of the glass building that appropriately enough houses his office, contemplates the demands of his researcher, but is at once relieved and alarmed when police Captain Ambrose summons him to thepolice station to be interviewed about the sudden demise of Riley, who has been shot through the eye. Ambrose, he of the face of an El Greco martyr, wishes to interview Glass because he was the last person known who spoke to the researcher. I doubt there is a single character in this book (unless one takes into account Ambrose) with any unselfish aspect. Each one seems to have an eye only for his own advancement. The stepson is, perhaps, the most overtly unpleasant of the cast but none of them could afford to throw stones at the others' glass houses (so to speak). And the mystery? I would go so far as to say the resolution is unsatisfactory. One can only trust that the book is an inaccurate mirror of the lives of the superwealthy and those of their families. If these are the great and the good, we're in real trouble. This short novel first saw the light of day as a New York Times Sunday Serial.
Reviewed by Denise Pickles, August 2008
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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