Late and Soon

by Robert J. Hughes Narrated by Robert J. Hughes

Overview

In this exquisite debut novel, a host of characters confront their confusions in love. Claire, an art specialist at Sotheby's, lives in a world of glamour and achievement-but after attending an art opening, where she runs into the young man her husband had left her for five years earlier, she realizes that her broken heart has never truly healed. Claire begins to question herself, her past, and her future, as does the younger man, Toby.

So begins a story spinning in the rarified but fast-paced whirl of art auctions in New York City. LATE AND SOON chronicles Claire's emotional course, as she puts together a sale of paintings that could make her career. Meanwhile, the possibility of romance does indeed loom. For as Claire puts together her auction she not only contemplates her life and the art she sells, she must decide whether or not to begin a relationship with Frank, her ex-husband's brother, who has come to New York in pursuit of her, so many years later.

Editorial Reviews

Carolyn See

… you might find yourself fascinated by this idiosyncratic, highly original, defiantly unfashionable novel. It takes as its subject seven young Manhattanites whose lives are undergoing serious change. What they have in common is an ambiguous attitude about self-knowledge (some work desperately for it; others feel that the less they know, the safer they are).
— The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

A Sotheby's art specialist must arrange a career-making auction of 19th-century paintings, reconsider the loss of her marriage and negotiate the possibilities of new romance in Hughes's mannered, elegant debut. At an art opening one evening, Claire, 32, encounters Tobias, the man her ex-husband, Peter, left her for, and learns that that Peter has dumped Tobias, too. Claire can offer sympathy but not much attention: she has her own still-wounded heart to think about, and she's tied up in securing two paintings by James Tissot (a "first-rate second-tier artist") for her auction from Elizabeth Jane Driscoll, an octogenarian widow with undeserving heirs. To both women, the paintings bear the symbolic weight of memory and desire. Also in the picture is Peter's brother, Frank, a former priest who arrives in New York with a confused affection for Claire, and spunky Bernice Carton, who collects art by collecting husbands. Hughes, a Wall Street Journal reporter who's covered the auction market, depicts the meeting of art and commerce with an insider's keen eye, and it is this part of the book that fascinates most. Claire's emotional twists and turns, rendered in ornamental prose attuned to the slightest shift in feeling or nuance, are less novel but nevertheless affecting in this credible tale of longing and hope. (Nov.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

This debut novel by Wall Street Journalreporter Hughes is a montage of the intertwining lives of several contemporary New Yorkers, with Claire, an art specialist at Sotheby's, emerging as the central character. After Claire's marriage ended when husband Peter announced that he was gay, Claire took the higher road, maintaining a warm friendship with her ex-husband and his companion, Toby. Now that Peter and Toby have broken up and Peter has found a new companion, Claire realizes that she's been unable to move on in her own emotional life. Then Frank, Peter's distant older brother and a former priest who now teaches college, moves to New York on a sabbatical to write a book, and Claire begins reaching out to him. Having recently put all her energies into her work, Claire realizes that she has found escape from her solitude via her imaginative empathy with the paintings she sells, which allows the novel to give detailed analyses of some actual 19th-century paintings. Unfortunately, this technique can become a drawback when an author introduces too many art and literary references and presupposes a level of sophistication on the part of the readers that might not be there. The book's strengths lie in the well-developed characters and in how the author demonstrates their tentative yet hopeful strides toward change and fulfillment. Recommended for academic fiction collections.
—Maureen Neville

Kirkus Reviews

Second-guessing, self-absorption and gestures toward love and redemption, set against the backdrop of New York's art auction scene. The ingredients of Wall Street Journal reporter Hughes's first novel promise delicious, intellectual entertainment: romance, sexual betrayal, sumptuous art and music and a supporting cast of eccentric characters. Alas, high-minded ambition-a murky point about the connections between art, commerce and spirituality perhaps, or an attempted reprise of late-Victorian subtleties-gets in the way. With the exception of a few too-brief scenes, the novel centers on the inner lives, and repetitive inner monologues, of its hesitant characters. Most of the action happens offstage: Five years earlier, Claire, a 30-something art auctioneer, divorced Peter, an antique-furniture dealer, after he left her for a man, Toby, also an art maven. As the story opens, Peter has left Toby for Sean, a police detective. Claire puts together an auction and goes on a few near-dates with Peter's brother Frank, a brooding ex-priest and academic on sabbatical to write a business advice book, Teresa Avila, CEO. Everybody struggles toward self-forgiveness and love, but for pages at a time, little happens. Indeed, the characters are so absorbed in their own circular thoughts that when they are together they apologize to each other for drifting off in the middle of conversation, even as they dwell on their tortured isolation. As befits her profession, Claire has a sharp eye and cool hand. Through her, we hear many gorgeous, lovingly detailed descriptions of paintings and some very funny and insightful remarks on the people who are selling them. But once she looks inward, humor and insight allbut disappear. The reach for a romantic climax is too little, too late. Carefully nuanced, but to no great end.

JUN/JUL 06 - AudioFile

Claire is a Sotheby's expert who has her sights on two paintings by a "first-rate second-tier artist." If she can put together an auction with these paintings, it will strengthen her position in the art world. Robert Hughes is an arts reporter for THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, and his insider's savvy offers listeners much satisfaction. Hughes narrates his debut novel, and, while his insights into the behind-the-scenes machinations of a grand auction house are fascinating, his reading falls short of the mark. With strong characters and a plot bursting with intrigue, sophistication, and romance, it's a shame that this multilayered story remains a one-dimensional listening experience. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169062243
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	12/06/2005
Edition description:	Unabridged

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