cover image Fellow Travelers

Fellow Travelers

James Cook. Permanent Press (NY), $18 (240pp) ISBN 978-1-57962-052-3

Spanning 60 years, Cook's exposition-heavy first novel begins in 1922, when brash New Yorker Manny Faust persuades his pliant younger brother, 19-year-old Victor, to quit college, abandon his dreams of acting and join him in a new business in the fledgling Soviet Union. Victor complies, establishing a pattern of submission and complacency that will haunt him throughout this heavy-handed saga. In Russia, the brothers revive a failing platinum mine, foray into money laundering and launch a shady import-export operation. Victor has a good head for business, and grotesquely ambitious Manny consistently exploits that talent--first in Moscow and, later, back in the States, where the Fausts return after Stalin assumes power. With his eventual leadership of Pacific Petroleum, and his substantial art collection, Manny is clearly modeled after Occidental Petroleum's Armand Hammer (who did, in fact, have a younger brother named Victor). Given recent revelations about Hammer and espionage, the parallel might have yielded rich plot twists, but Cook's awkward prose fails to enliven even the myriad love episodes. Victor is a tedious narrator who frequently, and frustratingly, loses track of his story: describing his daughters' childhoods, he writes, ""And yet, as with so much from those days, I can't quite remember them. The outline is there, but the emotion I felt remains invisible."" There are some satisfying, if obvious, scenes showing the futility of a utopian society: in Russia, as elsewhere, people lust for money and power. But this is an oddly sterile novel. Notwithstanding the heavy-handed symbolism of the name ""Faust,"" there's none of the implied battle between good and evil. The outline is there, but the emotions remain invisible. (Dec.)