oooh, i am really into this book. you kind of have to get past the gimmicky fact that it is comprised entirely of e-mails, & that no one really writes that eloquently when they are writing e-mail, but whatever. i'll let it slide this one time. okay, so the story is pretty complex: the guy who instigates all of this e-mail writing is a fellow named daniel. the e-mails are being written to his daughter, who is around 18. she lives in england with her mother, a formerly well-known actress, the daughter of a united states senator, whose career was derailed by a drug problem. he is attempting to convince his daughter to come back to the united states & testify at a parole hearing so that someone--not specificed until the end of the book--will be released from jail. in order to convince her to do this, he basically has to tell her his entire life story, including the part about how he took her to new york city when she was eight years old & abandoned her in a hotel room. the deal is that he joined a weather underground-style group in the 60s & while living underground using a fake name & attending college again, he met her mother & fell in love. he confessed his real identity to her, & she used her father's government connections to keep everything hushed up. daniel was able to finish school & become a lawyer, & they had a child together. when the daughter was eight, a client came to daniel--a big-time pot distributer. he wondered if daniel would be willing to meet with a 60s fugitive who was looking to turn herself in to the FBI. daniel refused, but the location of the conversation was bugged (due to drug thing), & the FBI & the press started talking, & a small town reporter started digging a little deeper & putting the clues together. when daniel realized he was found out for sure, he had to run for it & leave his daughter in the hotel. he traveled to michigan, where he met up with another fugitive--an ex-girlfriend he hadn't seen since the night an armed robbery went awry, shortly after they had had a child together. he needed to convince her to do him a really big favor so he could go back to new york & take care of his daughter. so, these e-mails are coming to the daughter from her father, her father's 60s ex-girlfriend, this small town reporter who uncovered the whole thing, his girlfriend, the drug distributer whose house had been bugged, & i think that's everyone. & everyone is explaining how their lives became inter-connected & why they made the decisions they made, & why it's important for her to come testify at the parole hearing. now that i write it all out, it sounds pretty far-fetched, huh? & there are even a few more insanely coincidental twists to the plot that make it even worse. but i swear, it's a really compelling book. it's really hard to put down. & yeah, everyone now & again, you're like, "yeah, as if someone would write all this in an e-mail," or, "you have got to be kidding me with this ludicrousness," but at least it's not boring. right?
Set against the rise and fall of the Weather Underground, the antiwar group of the Vietnam War era, THE COMPANY YOU KEEP is a sweeping American saga about sacrifice, the ecstatic righteousness of youth, and the tension between political ideals and family loyalties. Here's what's going on...Jason Sinai...age 46...is having a bad day or two in the early summer of 1996. He likes his life as Jim Grant, a civil rights attorney in Albany, New York. He loves his 7 year old daughter Izzy...and is a caring single parent. Then his life explodes...His ex-wife sues him for full custody of their daughter...she has dried out after three trips to rehab and is living in London with her father, a millionaire and former U. S. Senator from New York State.His client, a successful organic veggie grower, is concerned about explaining the organic marijuana growing under the veggies to the FBI...but has a friend who has just surrendered to the FBI to face murder charges for a bank robbery in Ann Arbor in 1974 that resulted in a killing of the guard...A local investigative reporter named Ben Schulberg has just interviewed him and asks him some very personal questions...but mainly why he isn't representing the friend of his marijuana-growing client. Schulberg, unhappy to have to research "hippie history," is about to break the biggest story of his young career.The novel is told in a series of 2006 emails to Izzy who now lives in London...mainly from Daddy but also from Schulberg, from a college classmate Mimi Lurie, from a woman who lost a husband in Vietnam and used to babysit Izzy, from a student at Ann Arbor named Rebeccah Osbourne....all related or relevant somehow to the "bad parent" whose past caught up with him one summer day of 1996....those days ten years ago.Told in three parts, the dividing pages contain lines of lyrics from "Thumbelina," a 1994 song written and sung by Chrissie Hynde that asks a question or two...here's a partial stanza:Hush little darlingGo to sleepLook out the windowCount the sheepThat dot the hillsidesAnd the fields of wheatAcross AmericaAs we cross AmericaWhat's importantHere today?It's a mesmerizing, thought-provoking story...Postscript: Although Redford and his screenwriter changed some names and ages in the film throwing off the whole timeline...I suggest you see the movie first. The novel does not glorify the notorious Weathermen nor domestic terrorists as the movie does.
What do You think about The Company You Keep (2004)?
While the pace of the book is often slow, it was nonetheless interesting from start to finish and I especially enjoyed the glimpses of information about the Vietnam protest era. The book is written in the form of e-mails from various individuals to the daughter of the main character of the book. The reasons behind the e-mails remains unknown until the final pages of the book whne the author pulls all the pieces together. Trying to figure out the purpose of the e-mails kept me intrigued throughout the book and although I would have preferred a little more action my interest was maintained.If I had a complaint about the book it would be in the similarity of the e-mails in terms of tone and writing style from one writer to the next. I believe about job could have been done in terms of developing their characters through the style of their e-mails rather than strictly through the story they are telling.
—Steve Wilson
Recently a friend of mine gifted me with a copy of The Company You Keep. As someone who went to college during the late sixties, early seventies, the historical background (SDS/Weather Underground) intrigued me. I remember many of the names quoted: Diane Oughton, Kathleen Soliath, Susan Sterns, I even remember having conversations with Silas Trim Bissell at the UW hub. So I was eager to read it. And indeed I did plow through the first hundred pages. Oddly when James Hall, the upstate NY attorney, is on the run, AND we figure out that he is Jason Sinai, a Weather Underground fugitive, the story starts bogging down. For a political thriller, I would have expected more suspense and paranoia. Gordon told the story through multiple emails to the main character's daughter. This was engaging at first, but about half-way through I got tired of it. Plus I couldn't get over how each of the correspondents was equally adept at descriptive prose. Furthermore, I wondered how interested the daughter would have been in some of the more intimate details. It's evident that Gordon can write very well. I think he should have dispensed with the email format. If the entire book had been written as well as the last sixty pages, I would have rated it five stars. On the other hand, three stars is way more than the movie would probably rate.
—Carol Tensen
I picked this up because I had originally wanted to see the movie, and didn't realize it had been a book first. I was intrigued by the format - the entire book is told in emails, so you hear the story laid out by different people and their viewpoints. Although it starts out captivating, the book ends up becoming sort of long and drawn out, and I found myself just wanting it to get to the point. When the "big reveal" happens, its a little bit of a let down. It feels like so much of this book is more about the view points of the characters and less about what is actually happening, even though you are supposed to feel some sort of suspense. The end isn't even "the end" - the prologue does the wrapping up, and it is done very quickly and with very little personality.
—Ashleigh
