IT'S 1980, AND young Anton Winters, after an early exit from the Peace Corps due to a bout with malaria, is back in New York City...in the Dakota, in fact.
His father, Buddy, was the host of a much-admired talk show (there were such things in the 1970s, e.g., Dick Cavett's), but inexplicably walked off the show one day and traveled about for a year or so to find himself.
Now Buddy is hoping for a comeback, but the television industry is skeptical, reluctant to give him another chance. Who's to say he won't crack up again? He asks for Anton's help in putting a new show together.
It may be only because I teach it so often, but this seemed like Hamlet to me. The father returns from the dead (literally in Hamlet's case, figuratively in Anton's) with a request. The request is no small one; it will require the son to put his own life on hold and devote himself to furthering his father's interests. How can the son say no? At the same time, how can this go other than badly?
Since it is 1980, another resident of the Dakota is planning his own resurrection from the dead. Anton thus also plays a small role in John Lennon's re-emergence, as a crew member on John's sailing voyage to the Bermudas, during which he wrote much of his comeback Double Fantasy album, released shortly before he was murdered. Barbash presents a credible portrait of Lennon, but I did not feel that it added a lot to the novel. Ditto the accumulation of period detail--Barbash can't compete with City on Fire or Fortress of Solitude on this front.
But the the story of the Winters, father and son, I think will be sticking with me.
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