Although about as subtle as a fist in the face, this loud, angry domestic saga featuring a spectacular midlife crisis eventually settles down into an intelligent, honest piece. The problem is the price paid for arrival at the best Gates has to offer here in this ambitious, abrasive, second novel; enduring the brash character of his rebellious antihero. As a husband and father on borrowed time Willis, an educated, middle-class New York office worker currently seeking solace by reading Dickens, is too selfish to evoke even the slightest sympathy. Obsessed by his determination to become a drop-out, he has long since given up relating to his wife and kids. As the novel opens the unhappy family are heading off to their house in the country - Dad in one car, wife, etc. in the other. Tense stalemate is followed by the family leaving Willis to a two-month sabbatical. While the passages featuring Willis, his brother and other boozy buddies pall under the banal macho-speak that passes for conversation, the narrative acquires an unnerving emotional force when the action shifts to Jean, the bitter wife, asking her children "why are you punishing me?" Her characterisation makes this novel worth reading. When Gates is good he is very good - just not as good as he thinks he is.
Cromwell: an Honourable Enemy, by Tom Reilly (Phoenix Press, £10.99 in
