Western Alliances

March 1, 2023

Author of the New York Times best-selling Lookaway, Lookaway, Barnhardt returns after a decade with a family saga featuring the dysfunctional Costa family, headed by Wall Street banker Salvador. Children Roberto and Rachel, who live off him instead of holding jobs, are beginning to examine their father's actions as they tootle around Europe. With a 60,000-copy first printing. Prepub Alert.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2023
An appealing hybrid of travelogue, dilettante's diary, family saga, expos� of the new international Capitalism of the Oligarchs, and the bedpost-notching of a sexual swashbuckler--set against the backdrop of the Wall Street collapse of 2008. Roberto Costa has never had to work. Son of Salvador, a Providence bond trader-turned-CNBC talking head-turned, lately, investment bank CEO, Bobby drifts through Europe, in parallel and in competition with his feckless sister, Rachel. He is a charmer, a gifted linguist, tall and handsome in addition to rich, and he bounces from city to city, conquest to conquest, taking notes for an always-in-its-early-stages magnum opus he sees as part Pepys, part Sebald, part guide to comparative linguistics. Bobby and Rachel are gluttons for all things old European, and they have a spirited rivalry when it comes to collecting places and relics, especially Romanesque architecture. Both are circled by hangers-on, users; chief among these is their shameless, amusing con woman mother, who's long since moved on from Salvador but not from the pursuit of his assets. The novel is lightly but deftly plotted; most of its joys have to do with bantering dialogue and with what Bobby calls his "Notebooks" project. His observations about history, culture, and especially language are great fun, and Barnhardt also excels, in the son's affectionate interactions with his father, at illustrating and glossing the 2008 crisis and the greed and skulduggery that caused it. (The Henry Miller part of all this, detailing the sexcapades of our blood flow-challenged hero, pale by comparison.) About two-thirds through, several swift, cleverly deployed plot devices put Bobby in possession of significant new resources, significant new moral ambiguities, and at last, nearing 40, in vague pursuit of a coming-of-age. The novel begins to morph into the one genre its man-child protagonist has never wanted any part of. A likable, smart, wide-ranging ramble, good fun for those who like novels not aimless but a little aim-resistant.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2023
Whom can a trust-fund baby trust, especially once the trust fund runs out? That's the question plaguing Roberto, son of cable-TV financial guru Sal Costa. He obviously can't trust his equally avaricious sister, Rachel, nor their hypochondriac mother, Sal's ex, Lena. And given his penchant for antiquities and art history, probably no one in the Eurotrash circles he frequents, either. When the financial upheaval of 2008 threatens to cut off virtually all their funding, Roberto, Rachel, and Lena become mired in the very high stakes game of one-upmanship required to master myriad legal wranglings necessary to continue living large. Reduced to cadging couches from whatever ex-lover or new romance will have him, Roberto nevertheless continues his dilettante's tour of the continent, all while scheming to ingratiate himself with Sal and cut his sister and mother out of the dwindling Costa economic empire. Fans of HBO's Succession will be attracted to the backstabbing and debauchery on gaudy display in Barnhardt's campy, steamy social satire.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2023

Originally from Providence, RI, bond-market multimillionaire Sal has rubbed elbows with all sorts, including the Mafia, and then becomes a financial guru at a large Wall Street firm. His two children, Roberto and Rachel, have never had to work but instead travel throughout Europe, pretending to do research. Their spending has no limits, and they expect a substantial inheritance. Meanwhile, their mother, who is divorced from Sal, keeps trying to con money from him. When the 2008 financial collapse hits, neither she nor her children are prepared, finding themselves cut off from their accounts because they fail to follow Sal's advice about managing their money. As they flounder, mother and daughter scheme to beg, borrow, or steal money from Sal and/or Roberto. Meanwhile, Sal is made CEO of his company and brokers a deal with the government to save the organization, but just as things begin to settle down, tragedy strikes. VERDICT In a story perhaps too close to reality to be regarded as purely fun reading, Barnhardt (Lookaway, Lookaway) creates a biting and hilarious indictment of generational wealth and its effects. Any fiction reader would enjoy.--Joanna M. Burkhardt

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.