East Side Story

October 4, 2004
A starred review indicates a book of outstanding quality. A review with a blue-tinted title indicates a book of unusual commercial interest that hasn't received a starred review.

EAST SIDE STORY
Louis Auchincloss
. Houghton Mifflin
, $24 (240p) ISBN 0-618-45244-3

Venerated author Auchincloss serves up solid tales but few surprises in his 60th novel of upper-crust New York life. When retired nurse Loulou Carnochan begins to compile the history of the Carnochan clan in the 1960s, she admits that she is "planning a species of novel with what was at best a collection of short stories," and indeed, the book has the feeling of a collection of family anecdotes. Scottish thread merchant David emigrated to the United States in the 1830s; Eliza, the wife of David's eldest son, secretly loves David's youngest, a Civil War hero; Bruce, a son of Eliza's, chooses security over romance in marriage; Gordon and David, two cousins of the succeeding generation, play out a dynamic of power and idealism that will be repeated in their sons' generation. Occasionally, every Carnochan seems to be hiding either a thwarted romanticism or an amoral cynicism under a layer of respectable Christian business sense. However, the author knows a thousand variations on his theme of social hypocrisy, and he's at his best when he allows his characters to complicate their two-dimensional roles; it is these moments that justify his reputation as a pre-eminent chronicler of American life. Agent, Mitchell Waters at Curtis Brown.
BOMC alternate. (Dec. 2)

Forecast:
Reviews and retrospectives are likely to make much of Auchincloss's landmark 60th novel, which should fuel sales of this and backlist titles.

August 1, 2004
For his 60th novel (the first having appeared in 1947), Auchincloss follows the fortunes of the Scottish Carnochans, who prospered where else? on New York's Upper East Side in the 19th century. A BOMC alternate.

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November 1, 2004
After a lifetime of observing and chronicling the customs and habits of New York City's upper crust, Auchincloss never fails to entertain and enlighten with his often searing yet unfailingly affectionate portraits of a breed apart. For his sixtieth book, he has chosen to recount the history of the fictional Carnochans, a tight-knit Scottish clan who arrived in mid-nineteenth-century New York, established a thriving textile business, and profited and prospered during the Civil War and beyond. Stretching back and forth across generations of Carnochan men and women, intriguing individual stories are interwoven into a revealing tapestry of a privileged family held together by an unwavering collective conviction that they must live up to the social, educational, and financial expectations of both their kinsmen and their class. Another illuminating historical glimpse into the rarified world of Manhattan's high society from an author who has spent his entire life and career immersed in it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)