Hunting Old Sammie

Three years after 9/11, festering anger between already-hostile neighbors escalates to a horrific resolution in this tragicomic saga of isolation and betrayal. Lauricella's novel pits Armand Terranova, a former petroleum industry analyst, against reclusive neighbor Luke Robideau, who tends to his elderly mother and ekes out a living as a night janitor. The misbehavior of the Robideaus' pets provokes Terranova, whose anger is exacerbated by his general discontentment and suspicions that his wife, Leah, is unfaithful. As the U.S. hunts for Osama bin Laden, Terranova's son, Alessandro, plays a video game called Hunting Old Sammie. While the comparison of the international and neighborly conflicts is simplistic, Lauricella provides some insight into a society in turmoil, as the neighbors' mutual ignorance reinforces their increasing dislike of each other. A brief sexual liaison between Leah and a professor named Max Obermann provides an outside perspective on the mounting paranoia of Terranova and the Robideaus. While Lauricella's parallels between the 9/11 attacks and the uneasy tensions of modern America are suggestive (if heavy-handed), their domination of the narrative provides scant external perspective on the lives of the feuding families. The extended descriptions of Alessandro's video-game playing evokes a Strangelovian sense of a web of disaster that enmeshes all the characters and extends throughout U.S. society; Lauricella's dark musings, though, are more witty than convincing.