I'm a sucker for Louis Begley books. New York City's Upper East Side has always fascinated me and Begley's characters have so much depth. I wasn't disappointed in boring old Hugo and how he survived his wife leaving him for a younger man.

Even though I have not read anything by Louis Begley until now, I recognized his name. But that’s not why I decided to read this. I read it because it’s described as “a comedy of manners” and I decided I definitely could use some comic relief, as I’m sure so many do. Unfortunately, I found it to be more sad than comical. Just like that, in brief phone call from his wife’s attorney, Hugo is informed that his wife of 40 years is filing for divorce. He’s 84, more than twenty years older than she is. He’s surprised and hurt to learn that she’s leaving him for a younger man. “Don’t you know that living with you is like living with a corpse.” She’s leaving because she thinks he’s old and boring. Even his mean spirited daughter, who’s always ready for a handout, tells him that and that he was never around when they were young. His son is moderately nicer. Hugo avoids friends at first, so he won’t have to talk about his ex wife leaving him for a younger man. His two children, keeping away . So should I feel sorry for him or not? I did, but I have to admit after a while he bored me, too. So why did I continue to read and why did I give it three stars ? The bottom line is that I was concerned for Hugo, and always wanted to know how he would fare through this big change in his life as he looks to his past for perhaps the man he used to be, a way to find some happiness. All in all, not one I can say I loved, but ultimately a satisfying story.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Nan A. Talese (Random House) through Edelweiss and NetGalley.

Unfortunately, when I am gifted a book by a reading site such as NetGalley, LibraryThing, and/or a publisher I feel compelled to read it. Then I hear my seventh-grade teacher whispering in my ear “if you are reading for recreation and are underwhelmed or uninterested, put the book down and find something that speaks to you”. Would that I could because I have an equally strong sense of commitment to being fair and there is that quid pro quo understanding.

Back to The New Life of Hugo Gardner – this was a complete miss for me. A book about a man who is a pompous, abrasive, self-absorbed octogenarian who finds himself newly divorced and unable to comprehend how he could have been left behind. His sexual exploits and dalliances, oh who cares?!

The writing is good, the name-dropping, bragging and everything else was not. Thank you NetGalley and Doubleday for a copy.

There aren't any characters in this book I liked or could relate too and though Valerie was certainly heartless in her sudden dumping of Hugo (after 40 years?!?), I could see what she meant about the boredom. I was bored just reading about Hugo's life. His daughter, Barbara, is despicable in my opinion, demanding constant handouts while at the same time berating her father.

It's not surprising Hugo was blindsided by the news of the divorce; he seems to live with his head in the clouds and isn't especially aware of life around him. Yes, it's hard getting old - in that respect I have sympathy for Hugo.

I'm not a fan of the style of writing - no quotation marks, just run-on dialogue with multiple people talking. The author did, however, paint a clear picture of an older man thrown into a world for which he was ill-prepared. It's an interesting study on aging.

Published by Doubleday/Nan A. Talese on March 17, 2020

At 85, Hugo Gardner thinks of himself as a “tattered coat upon a stick.” He misses Valerie, to whom he was long married, but she recently left him for the younger man with whom she was sleeping. As an elderly husband he was boring, despite having once had an exciting career as a foreign correspondent and eventually as the editor of Time. While his daughter depends on him to pay tuition for his grandchildren, she otherwise sides with her mother and makes clear that she despises him. He gets along with his son, but has a vague feeling that he failed both of his children as well as his wife and grandchildren. His contacts with his son and grandkids have been “pleasant but not particularly affectionate.”

When Hugo must decide whether to have treatment to prevent his prostate cancer from metastasizing, he considers whether he wants to prolong his life and at what cost. Despite his shortcomings and the malaise they have produced, he thinks he is happy, albeit lonely. He takes joy from his garden and the birds it attracts, from walks on the beach and his writing projects, from food and drink and books and operas. If his memories are not all good, some are splendid. Hugo feels vast regret that he will die, a fate that comes closer every day, but he wants to die on his own terms: lucid, mobile, and independent.

As Hugo ponders his choices, he has occasion to go to France, where he worked for years as a journalist. He looks up some old friends, chats with them about the unlikely presidential candidate running against Hilary. He eventually contacts a former lover he abandoned for Valerie. They rehash old memories, not always pleasant (particularly from Jeanne’s perspective), but they make new ones, at least until the time comes to think about the future.

Unlike novels about seniors who look back at their lives, The New Life of Hugo Gardner is primarily about the difficulty of looking forward when not much time remains. Thinking about the future isn’t easy when there isn’t much future left. Hugo considers the future that everyone faces to be bleak, given the world’s refusal to confront the reality of global warming and its growing embrace of totalitarian leaders, but his concerns are more personal. Forming new or renewed relationships is difficult after a certain age. It is unlikely, after all, that he will find someone who will commit to a relationship that is doomed to end in the relatively near future. Even adopting a dog, only to make it an orphan, seems like a bad idea.

Or is Hugo refusing to think outside the box? He is hardly alone in his loneliness. Even much younger people feel isolated. Perhaps if he opens himself to opportunity, the rest of his days can be shared with people who care about him, even if those relationships are not what he had with Valerie or Jeanne.

The New Life of Hugo Gardner is not a novel for readers who insist on a page-turning plot. It is a contemplative character study that meanders in the nonlinear direction of thoughts that occur to an aging man. The publisher calls this novel a “comedy of manners,” but I read it as a bittersweet exploration of the nuances of aging. Hugo is far from a typical octogenarian — he is surprisingly virile for a man of his age — but he embodies the regrets of men who have lived self-absorbed lives, men who gave attention to careers rather than families and friends, who feel both betrayed and guilty as they try to chart a path forward. Hugo’s self-analysis and refusal to blame others for his faults gives him a certain charm, and his insightful commentary on life as it nears its end gives surprising weight to a light novel.

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My first Louis Begley book was About Schmidt and I came to it via the film. Can’t say I liked the film much but there was something about the main character that drove me to check out the source material. Since then, I’ve read a few other novels by the same author, so when I saw The New Life of Hugo Gardner, I knew I had to read it.

the new life of hugo gardner

Hugo Gardner is 84, he’s still healthy–although there are some nagging questions about his PSA. He’s had a phenomenal career as a journalist and author, he’s wealthy, he has two children, Barbara and Rod and he’s happily married to Valerie. Wait … he thought he was happily married, so Hugo is stunned one day to get a phone call from Valerie’s new lawyer who tells Hugo that Valerie, a successful food writer who has her own cooking show, wants a divorce. Valerie, at “a very shapely 61” has left Hugo for a younger man. Oh the humiliation. Hugo wants to confirm his wife’s decision:

Don’t you know that living with you is like living with a corpse? Not even a zombie. An unburied corpse! I can’t stand you, I haven’t been able to stand you for years! You don’t know that, imbecile!

Ouch!

Hugo lawyers up, and after the first shock passes, the divorce moves quickly and as painlessly as possible.

This life-changing event causes Hugo to reevaluate himself as a husband and a father, and all this takes him back to revisit his past in the form of the girlfriend he dumped when he met Valerie.

On one level, it’s hard as a reader to relate to Hugo–he’s part of the 1%, with a great New York apartment and a house in Bridgehampton. Trips to Paris, eating at the finest restaurants and hiring staff to clean etc all come easy to Hugo. But scrape that aside and this is an engaging tale of a man who suddenly finds himself alone, wondering if he made the right choices, troubled by his children, and facing his own mortality. Hugo may be 84, but there’s still a lot of living to be done, and his zest for life is admirable. There’s some marvellous stuff between Hugo and his daughter, Barbara. Hugo continually shells out money for his grandchildren and while he wonders what is going on between Barbara and her dermatologist husband, he never questions or refuses her requests for money. For him, it’s there no moral decision involved

Barbara’s calls, the ones timed for when I would have finished breakfast but hadn’t yet gone out, were often of the ‘I’ve got something I’d sort of like to ask you’ variety. Duly translated they meant: I want some money. For the kids’ piano and dance lessons, summer camp fees, and the like. Why her dermatologist husband, practicing in Wellesley, which is, to my knowledge, still a wealthy suburb, can’t afford this stuff, I don’t know. The truth is that I don’t much care. When I am invited, for instance, to fund my elder granddaughter Trudy’s first-year tuition at a private day school, a sum for which I could have bought myself a Mercedes two-seater, I reply, but of course. Why should I say no? I have no desire to become the owner of that two-seater and love unconditionally my daughter and granddaughters.

The story is set against the upcoming presidential nomination, and Hugo isn’t shy about expressing his political opinions. Hugo is in many ways a disconnected character. His divorce comes as a shock, his daughter’s resentments are unexpected tirades (later explained) and he’s not that close with his son. Later when Hugo reconnects (and reignites sexually) with an old flame in Paris, he’s also far behind the 8 ball. Hugo, who leads an active life of the mind, is self-absorbed and so he’s always taken off guard in his personal relationships. That will never change. But ultimately, he’s a character who travels lightly–bears no grudges, rolls with the punches, and deals with life’s humiliations with equanimity and gentle self-deprecating humour.

Review copy