The Land of Steady Habits

January 6, 2014
Late-life divorce is the subject of Thompson’s acutely written first novel. Approaching retirement age, Anders Hill is recently divorced from his wife, Helene. They have two adult children, who don’t seem especially fond of their father, especially the troubled younger one, Preston, who has yet to find himself. But as lost as Preston is, he is still in much better condition than Charlie, the substance-abusing, preppy son of Helene’s best friends who inexplicably turns to Anders for support, this at a time when Anders is having difficulty supporting himself, both financially and spiritually. Things become even more complicated when Anders finds out that Helene is living in his old house with a new lover, Donny, a mutual friend from their college days. As a wickedly sharp framing device, Anders’s travails come to a head during the Christmas season. This novel is basically a series of confrontations, but Thompson is a master at dramatically pitting one character against another. The story takes place in Connecticut, and the author proves to be as keen an observer of this social scene as his literary forebears, Cheever and Updike. Anders, Helene, their children, lovers and friends, might not be the most likable group of characters you’ll come across, but the author humanizes them in a way that makes their problems relatable.

February 15, 2014
That particularly American novel, examining the soul-crushing consequences of suburban prosperity, is modernized here as a successful financier looks around his life and sees a wasteland. Southerner Anders Hill went to great lengths to avoid the upstanding conformity his father had planned for him, but at age 60, he's not sure what difference it's made. Sickened by the greed of Wall Street and his own personal culpability in all sorts of financial collateral damage, Anders embarks on a kind of slash-and-burn approach to his life: He opts for early retirement, asks his wife, Helene, for a divorce (kindly put on hold for a year while she recovers from a double mastectomy), stops paying the mortgage on their colonial and holes up in a condo he furnishes with Winslow Homer posters and decorative lobster traps. Anders' existential crisis, simmering for 20 years, is a rejection of everything he's built--the beautiful house in a tony Connecticut bedroom community (think Greenwich), two sons and a lovely wife--but now what? Meanwhile, thanks to Facebook, Helene has a boyfriend, Donny, who was Anders' college roommate and Helene's college boyfriend. An outcast among their friends, Anders has formed an unlikely friendship with Charlie, the rebellious teenage son of Mitchell and Sophie Ashby. After smoking PCP with Charlie at a holiday party (which sends Charlie to the hospital), Anders begins to fall apart in subtle but disturbing ways. Anders and Helene's son Preston is an adult version of Charlie. After a wasted youth following Phish, dealing drugs, and beginning and quitting various programs and colleges, he finally has a college degree but not enough sense to use it. The three stages of the Connecticut man--Charlie, Preston and Anders--in this land of steady habits, have the instinct to rebel but lack the imagination to live happily. Thompson's sharp-eyed debut is that kind of searing portrait of American wealth unraveling that is both dazzling and immeasurably sad.

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January 1, 2014

As a rebellious teen, Anders Hill rejects his father's plans for his future and succeeds on his own. In doing so, he finds himself in the land of steady habits, commuting to a finance job in Manhattan from a bedroom community in Connecticut. Now in his 60s, Anders realizes that the underlying satisfaction of having achieved success is eroded by his certainty that this is not the life he is meant to lead. The idyllic world he has created for himself unravels in one horrific year when he quits his job, divorces his wife, abandons his children, and befriends a neighbor's son, who then commits suicide. Anders is at a new crossroads; is the life he gave up the one he was destined to live? VERDICT Thompson, a Truman Capote Fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, crafts a story replete with characters searching for something other than what they have. Fans of John Updike will enjoy this book by a young, upcoming writer. Recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 10/28/13.]--Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2014
Filled with heartache and humor, this assured, compassionate first novel channels the suburban angst of Updike and Cheever, updating the narrative of midlife dissatisfaction with a scathing dissection of America's imploding economy. Financier Anders Hill seems to have it all: he's ensconced in a beautiful house in a wealthy Connecticut suburb, his children's college tuition has finally been paid, and he can now retire, freed from the weight of a soul-sucking job. But what he seems to want most is to blow up his entire life. He divorces his wife, buys a condo, and decides to attend the annual Christmas party of his old neighbors, where, surrounded by his ex-wife's close friends, he unravels in spectacularly hilarious fashion, fueled mostly by vitriol and partly by the PCP he's smoked with his neighbors' teenage son. By the time Anders realizes that he might have made an error in judgmenton all countshis ex-wife has taken up with an old boyfriend (Anders' college roommate) and his sons are entirely out of patience with dear old dad. How Anders forges his path to redemption, for both personal and professional sins, is not to be missed. With pitch-perfect prose and endearingly melancholy characters, Thompson offers up a heartbreaking vision of an ailing family and country.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)