Henry of Atlantic City: A Novel by Frederick Reuss is The Book Club Selection
The Book Club has chosen to read and discuss: Henry of Atlantic City: A Novel by Frederick Reuss
Thursday, February 3rd @ 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
2001 L Street, Suite 650, tel. 202-822-3870
Tell the security guard that you are going to the Book Club meeting.
The building is about three blocks from Farragut North Metro.
Please bring your own food and drink.
From Publishers Weekly
A wonderful foil for an uncaring world, six-year-old Henry wants to be a saint: he's read up on fifth-century Byzantium, and on the early Christian heresy called Gnosticism, and he brings his erudition to bear on sordid modern surroundings in Reuss's affecting, original second novel (after the praised Horace Afoot). Henry's father is a scheming embezzler who works as head of security at Caesar's Palace in Atlantic City. Henry's command of his favored ancient writers is abetted by Sy, his father's reluctant co-conspirator, an autodidactic blackjack dealer with his own metaphysical facility. (The Catholic priests at Henry's school show interest in his Gnosticism, too, but of course they want him to abjure it.) Some of the action in Reuss's slender plot involves the father's criminal machinations. The rest of it follows disputes over Henry's custody. He has grown up first around the casino, then temporarily with Sy's sister in Philadelphia. Placed with a foster family, the callous, duplicitous O'Briens, he tries to run away, ends up staying in St. Jude's Home for Boys and (among other misadventures) lets a gorilla out of a zoo. Reuss's mannerAa spare third-person narrative, sticking largely to terms and phrases Henry knowsAbecomes a courageously concentrated show of authorial control and tonal fidelity (though it does slip up a bit near the end). Henry's thoughts, and his speeches to other characters, mix quotes from Gnostic scriptures and Byzantine history with his questions about the mechanics of a befuddling adult world. Everything Henry sees gets a Byzantine gloss: cars can be chariots, and a tycoon Henry meets becomes the emperor Justinian. The play of past and present, heretical theology and life-experience, through Henry's consciousness yields some neat, sophisticated jokes. More often Reuss achieves a brilliant pathos, reminding us that at any age "loneliness is the most meaningless treasure in existence."
Cost: FREE
Contact: Wagner Jackson