This 2019 addition to the wonderful collection of Richard Russo’s books could be categorized as a mystery or love story, but neither category would be “traditional.” The mystery is a cold case that three characters who were/are in love with the same woman are trying to solve. Lincoln, a commercial real estate broker from Las Vegas, meets up with Mickey, a has-been musician and a sound engineer from Cape Cod, and Teddy, a small-press publisher from Syracuse. The three men are 66 years old when the story opens, and each reflects back on their days as “hashers” (kitchen help provided by scholarship students) in a girl’s sorority house at tiny Minerva College. At the time, they had been best friends, but they had not been in contact with each other since graduation weekend.
Flashing back, It is the time of the Vietnam War, and the pivotal experience the three shared was on December 1, 1969, when they watched on an old black and white TV in the sorority house’s kitchen as birthdates were drawn, and they learned what their fates would be.
A fourth character, Jacey, who was engaged to a “straight-arrow fiancee” but was best friends with the men, is the woman who completed the “All for one, and one for all” group. None of the men have heard from her or even of her since graduation weekend. Is she still alive? Did she come to a bad end? Was she murdered? Did one of the three do it?
The book is described on the cover as “an elegy for a generation.” I agree with the reviewer who lauds “Russo’s trademark comedy and humanity” because these four were characters I came to care about and would love to follow into a sequel.
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