About Schmidt

"If the sorrows of old 'Schmidtie' strike us as somewhat short of fully tragic, less than deeply moving, it's clearly intentional; Begley means us to keep our distance--to withhold our sympathies--from his smug, officious hero....It's this that makes Begley's novel most interesting and nervy. In an era in which critics enjoin writers to make their characters appealing...it takes considerable bravery to ignore such critical admonitions....His novel is comical, tough, unsparing; it's as if Louis Auchincloss had exchanged the kid gloves for brass knuckles."Louis Begley is the author of 'About Schmidt' with ISBN 9780788790270 and ISBN 0788790277.