The Daredevils
A Novel
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
A twelve-year-old boy, middle son in a wealthy, politically and culturally prominent San Francisco family, watches his city disappear in the earthquake and fires of 1906. His father him that nothing has been lost that cannot be swiftly and easily replaced. He quotes Virgil: “Nothing unreal is allowed to survive.” The boy turns this stark Stoic philosophical “consolation” into the radical theater practices of the day, in the course of which he involves himself with radical labor struggles: anarchists, Wobblies, socialists of every stripe. He learns that politics is meta-acting, and he and his girlfriend—a Connecticut mill girl who is on the verge of national recognition as a spokesperson for workers—embark on a speaking tour with a Midwestern anti-railroad, pro-farmer group and take their political, philosophical, and artistic ethos to the farthest limits of the real and the unreal, where they find there is no useful distinction between the two.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Existential questions are continually debated in this muddled novel from Amdahl (Visigoth), which takes place in America in the early 20th century. As a foreign war brews, union organizers are beginning to flex their muscles. Meanwhile, Charles Minot, born to a wealthy family, ponders where his place is in life, in his family, and in the universe. Living in San Francisco, Charles has an auspicious start in life as a well-known boy soprano who performs classical music with his mother. As an adult, he runs a theater (where he also performs), meeting an actress named Vera with a millworking background who is caught up in the burgeoning worker's movement. Some time after the theater is bombed which may have originated in union dissatisfaction Charles's father sets him up in Minnesota to mediate problems between wheat farmers and businessmen. Vera, accompanying him, becomes more drawn to union politics. Though there are some interesting themes can a man of privilege really understand the plight of the working poor? How far can one go to sacrifice for the common good? there's too much going on here, and the myriad philosophical ruminations and confusing dream-like passages undermine the story.
