Late City by Robert Olen Butler

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on September 7, 2021

Robert Olen Butler’s new novel explores the harm caused by a parental or social insistence that “real men” must behave in a way that allows the world to witness and appreciate their manliness. More broadly, Butler suggests that harm is done whenever people of either gender are made to deny their true selves.

While the novel’s title may have more than one meaning, the obvious reference is to the late city edition of a newspaper — the edition that comes at the end of the news day, the one that reports all the day’s events, when it’s too late to add anything new. After 115 years, Samuel Cunningham is at the end of his life, looking back at key events as if they were a series of news stories, the late city edition that recounts all of the news of a life that’s worth reporting.

Sam recounts those stories from a nursing home bed, where he resides as the last living veteran of the First World War. He reviews significant episodes in his life because it is finally time to die. A gender-fluid God (“don’t concern yourself with pronouns,” God tells Sam) is in the room as Sam approaches death, forcing him to give an accounting of his life, to voice his regrets and admit his mistakes, to gain an understanding of his relationships with his parents, wife, and son before God determines Sam’s eternal fate. Since the story is told from Sam’s perspective, whether or not God is actually present or the manifestation of a dying delusion isn’t important. Real or imagined, God is a device that prompts Sam’s self-critical evaluation of his life.

On its surface, Sam has lived a fine life. He grew up in Louisiana, where his father taught him to hunt with a rifle. Seeing his father abuse his mother but being too afraid to intervene, Sam lies about his age and joins the Army as World War I begins, sneaking off in the night, saying goodbye only to his mother, protecting her with a postcard to make his father believe that she had no advance knowledge of his plan.

Using the hunting skills he learned from his father, Sam becomes a sniper. He kills more than a hundred men, envisioning one of them as his father, a vision that doesn’t stop him from pulling the trigger. Sam learns that war is about “millions of men being forced to become somebody who has to dig a hole in the ground and then go down in it or jump up out of it and die a ferocious, savaging death when you just want to be a farmer or a teacher or a sale clerk or a guy stoking coal in a tramp steamer.” People not being allowed to be who they want to be, and how that denial of self-determination harms society as much as the individual, is one of the novel’s key themes.

Sam befriends a man who gives comfort to wounded soldiers in the trenches, hugging them and even kissing them when they believe they are being held by their mothers. When it comes time for Sam to do the same for his friend, Sam needs to ask himself whether he is capable of that kind of intimacy.

At the war’s end, Sam moves to Chicago, a destination far from Loouisiana. He has long loved newspapers and has a talent for writing, his only talent apart from killing. He finds a room in the home of a war widow, earns a job as a cub reporter at a progressive newspaper by writing a sensitive piece about the city’s race riots, marries and has a son. In another key scene, when his son is eleven, Sam explains that being a man means having the courage to kill other men to protect a country. That discussion, a few years later, motivates Sam’s son to join the Navy just before the US enters World War II.

From the end of the war until Sam’s visit from God, shortly after Trump’s election, Sam lives with the consequences of how he shaped his son’s life. It is only at the end of Late City that Sam comes to understand the truth about his son, to understand the harm to which he has contributed by failing to love him unconditionally and with his whole heart. He has a similar revelation about his wife, about how his and society’s expectations shaped the woman she became.

Late City isn’t a story about toxic masculinity. Sam is a decent but misguided man, a product of his time who, by rejecting racism, is a better man than many of his peers. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He truly loves his wife, even if he gives more attention to his career than to her. He wants to observe the world and report it rather than being part of it. But Sam could have been more than decent. He could have been a helper, not just an observer. He could have been more open and accepting.

After Sam learns those lessons by considering his life in retrospect, the novel’s final pages give Sam a small opportunity for redemption. That's a sweet and touching moment.

The story concentrates on Sam’s life from the First to the Second World War. The years that follow feel rushed, although they do bring Sam’s wife and marriage into sharper focus.

I caught myself holding my breath during a few tense moments in Late City. At other points, I was genuinely moved by the story. I disagree with the New York Times reviewer who called the novel outrageously sentimental. It isn’t a literary sin for authors to make readers feel something. Obvious emotional manipulation for its own sake is a drag, but the emotional response that Butler induces comes from a place of honesty. I did not feel manipulated by forced sentiment. Rather, I empathized with Sam’s belated realizations that, at three or four times in his life, he was less of a man than he should have been, no matter how many enemy soldiers he managed to kill.

The novel’s honesty extends beyond Sam’s examination of his own life and becomes a commentary on a society that forces good people to lose their own identities by conforming to standards imposed by others. Perhaps readers who cling to antiquated standards will deny the truth or the beauty of Late City. Readers with open minds might appreciate this heartfelt story of the mistakes a decent man can make during a long life.

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Paris in the Dark by Robert Olen Butler

Published by Grove Atlantic/Mysterious Press on Sept. 4, 2018

Christopher Marlowe “Kit” Cobb is a war correspondent in France in 1915. He is also an American spy. As a journalist, he is doing a story on American ambulance drivers with the hope that tales of American courage will prod Wilson to enter the war. As a spy, Cobb is asked to contact a German informant in Paris who knows something about the recent bombing of a hotel, presumably a German tactic to spread fear in Paris. He learns that a dangerous man has entered France using the name Franz Staub and posing as a refugee. Cobb’s mission is to kill Staub — assuming that Lang’s information is accurate.

Cobb finds and follows Staub, but he also finds a nurse. When he delays his mission to spend amorous time with the nurse, he finds reason to condemn his departure from duty. But it’s Paris, so Cobb can hardly be blamed.

In the meantime, Cobb is riding along with an American ambulance driver in France as part of his journalistic cover. Cyrus Parsons is a farm boy turned bookworm who seems to be concealing greater depth than he can easily reveal to a reporter. Another driver, John Barrington Lacey, strikes Cobb the wrong way, perhaps because of Lacey’s Harvard hauteur, perhaps because Lacey has designs on the nurse.

The plot of Paris in the Dark (Cobb's assignment is more challenging than it first appears) is not particularly surprising, but the story is engaging, fast-moving, and convincing. Robert Olen Butler builds suspense by placing Cobb in a series of tense moments that lead to the novel’s final dramatic encounter. Butler includes enough action to make the story fit the conventions of a thriller, but the novel's focus is on the characters whose lives have shaped their differing perspectives on the value of anarchy.

Butler has had a versatile career as an author, dancing between literary and genre fiction, but he invariably brings a literary flair to his storytelling when he chooses to write thrillers. He creates atmosphere and develops believable characters without relying on unnecessary detail. His prose is gritty but graceful. There’s an appealing simplicity to Paris in the Dark — Butler doesn’t make the mistake of overreaching — but unlike some of Butler’s other work, the story does not stand out as a commentary on the human condition. Butler isn’t going to win another Pulitzer for Paris in the Dark, but the book should entertain fans of historical thrillers.

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Perfume River by Robert Olen Butler

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on September 6, 2016

A brief, charitable encounter with a homeless man named Bob Weber causes Robert Quinlan to reflect on his life, particularly a moment during the Tet Offensive when he hid beneath a banyan tree and fired a shot that haunts him. Robert’s brother Jimmy is 68, has been married to Linda for 24 years, but has a thing for Heather, a much younger woman. Jimmy fled to Canada to avoid the draft and has lived there ever since. He has not spoken to his parents or brother in decades.

Perfume River is largely a novel told in memory, the reflections of characters who are nearing the end of their lives. The reader learns the backstory of each character in alternating story segments, but the stories of Robert, Jimmy, and Bob all intersect when Robert’s father, now 89, is in the hospital, facing death. The characters have adjusted to their circumstances, but some baggage can never be put away. The secret Robert has carried about his service in Vietnam is one that he never shared, even with his father, but his father has a secret that he has never shared with Robert. Sharing their secrets might bring them together, but neither man can bring himself to do it.

Family conflict is one of the novel’s driving themes. Fathers, sons, and grandsons have differing perspectives about  the value of military service. The lives and personalities of Bob, Robert, and Jimmy have all been shaped by a militaristic father. Bob’s father was abusive, while the father of Robert and Jimmy was demanding, unyielding, and unforgiving. At one point, Robert’s mother tells his wife that men make wars so that fathers and sons, who have so much difficulty communicating as adults, will have a mutual experience to bond over, but the novel makes clear that bonding is far from inevitable. The impact of war on families is seen in each of the book’s significant relationships.

The embrace and rejection of spirituality is another of the novel’s themes, illustrated by Jimmy’s evolving belief in an afterlife and his wife’s denunciation of that belief, by Robert’s wife’s meditation on mind versus body as she contemplates monuments to women of the past, by Robert’s need for absolution, and by Bob’s delusional fear of the hand of God and his interaction with a pastor who champions the Second Amendment. In fact, Bob draws together the themes of parental conflict and spirituality in his belief that fathers (whether parents or God the Father) are a cause of enduring pain.

Ultimately, this is a novel of reconciliation and redemption. Death sometimes brings an estranged family together, but Perfume River isn’t a feel-good novel. Still, people change over the course of their lives -- in ways both small and dramatic -- and Perfume River illustrates how those changes can have an impact on families.

Some of the scenes, particularly one involving Robert and his father, are intense. In its final stages, a threat looms that causes the novel to build tension like a thriller, but at the same time, the story delivers a series of honest moments that are emotional without being superficial. A powerful novel that doesn’t waste a word, Perfume River proves that Robert Olen Butler is still at the top of his game, particularly as a chronicler of the Vietnam War’s aftermath.

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The Hot Country by Robert Olen Butler

Published by Mysterious Press on October 2, 2012

Robert Olen Butler returns Pancho Villa to life as a supporting character in his latest novel. The Hot Country follows a literary path marked by Graham Greene (among others) -- within the trappings of a thriller, the author undertakes a deeper study of human nature. The "hot" country is Mexico in 1914: hot because of its climate, because it is a hotbed of revolution, because its women are passionate. The result is entertaining but not as compelling as Greene's best novels -- or Butler's.

On the day when the United States begins its military occupation of Vera Cruz, a news photographer snaps a picture of Christopher "Kit" Cobb, a reporter for a Chicago newspaper, standing near two dead Mexican snipers. The story jumps ahead a few weeks as Cobb gazes at the photograph in his editor's office, remembering the woman in the picture, Luisa Morales. It then moves back in time to the day Cobb met Luisa, shortly before the Marines arrived in Vera Cruz. The remainder of the novel covers the time that passes between the day of the invasion and the day Cobb returns to Chicago, then moves forward another few days.

Cobb is intrigued by Luisa, even as he comes to suspect her as the sniper in nonfatal shootings of a Mexican priest, a city official who is cooperating with the Americans, and an American Marine. While he wants to pursue the story of the shootings, he's also intrigued by the tall scarred German he sees sneaking ashore from the Ypiranga, a German steamer. During most of that novel, Cobb is chasing a dangerous story that focuses on the scarred man, Friedrich von Mensinger, a representative of Germany who wants to persuade Pancho Villa to launch a counterattack against American forces.

Butler avoids the improbable shootouts and one-against-five martial arts battles that are commonplace in ordinary thrillers. There is a knife fight, there is a gunfight, there's even a sword fight, but they are realistic -- they always convey the sense that Cobb's life is at risk. Most of the time, Butler creates tension with more subtlety: using a fake passport on a train, Cobb must persuade the Federales that he is a German; searching through Mensinger's saddlebags for hidden documents, Cobb is hyperaware of the sounds that signal danger.

Still, in his attempt to meld a literary novel and a thriller, Butler doesn't fully succeed in the creation of either one. The final scene in Mexico is enjoyable but unconvincing, while the novel's final scene (a revelation about Cobb's mother) is from well beyond left field. Key characters have the feel of stereotypes: an embittered news photographer who stopped writing (and started drinking) as a protest against censorship; an American mercenary who has signed on to support Pancho Villa's cause. We spend too little time getting to know Luisa and Mensinger and Villa. Although Cobb could have stepped out of a Graham Greene novel, Butler doesn't quite capture the tortured soul that makes Greene's central characters so memorable.

This is not to say that Cobb is the empty shell that so often characterizes a thriller hero. Cobb describes himself as "a gringo with imperialist politics and moral indifference," a self-definition he will eventually test. Cobb's relationships with women -- his mother, Luisa, the washer girl who replaces Luisa -- are both complex and superficial. His attempts to communicate with them are muddled; he either fails to speak from his heart or does so at the wrong time.

Butler toughened his prose for this novel without sacrificing its customary elegance. He fills the book with atmosphere, making the reader hears the sounds of war, smell "the complex body-and-equipment stink of fighting men in the field," taste the sourness of pulque. My only stylistic gripe is that during The Hot Country's action sequences, Butler uses run-on sentences to convey Cobb's rush of adrenalin. It is a technique that should be used sparingly, if at all, and one in which Butler overindulges. In all other respects, the prose is stirring, well-suited for a literary thriller.

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A Small Hotel by Robert Olen Butler

Published by Grove Press on August 6, 2011

On the day their divorce hearing is scheduled, Kelly Hays flees to a boutique hotel in the French Quarter of New Orleans while Michael Hays drives west of the city to a plantation called Oak Alley. Kelly brings bottles of Macallan and Percocet with her: an ominous combination of traveling companions. Michael brings Laurie Pruitt, the younger woman he has started seeing. Both destinations trigger memories; more than once, Kelly and Michael stayed together at the same small hotel (including the day they met) and at the plantation (where they got married).

Kelly passes her time in and near the hotel by telling herself a silent story, beginning with a flashback to the Mardis Gras celebration where she first met (and was rescued by) Michael. She reflects upon "how abiding and deep an early impression we can draw of another person from a single, unexamined incident." Eventually that story moves on to another man in her life. In the meantime, Michael and Laurie attend a period party where Michael tries to stay in the moment, a task to which he is unsuited.

Few readers will like Michael although many will recognize in him some of the men they know. The women in Michael's life, those closest to him -- his wife, his daughter, his girlfriend -- never know what Michael is thinking. Michael compartmentalizes his thoughts, the better to ignore those that arise from emotions. Laurie is trying to figure out Michael's "silences and hard edges," still believes she can, believes Kelly simply didn't know how to love him. Laurie is waiting for "the nothing that is so often there" to "become a nuanced something." The reader gets the sense that Laurie will, in that regard, be following a dead-end path that Kelly has already traveled. To use the phrase that has become so popular, Michael is not "in touch with his emotions." In that regard, Michael is more extreme than most men: he can't seem to express any emotion, no matter how obvious the need for expression becomes.

If this novel has a fault, it is that Michael's inability to say "I love you," even to his daughter, is difficult to believe. By taking Michael to an extreme, however, Robert Olen Butler illustrates a familiar divide between men and women: while Kelly and Laurie are waiting uncomfortably for Michael to say something, to express a feeling, Michael feels connected to them by their mutual silence. There are other moments involving other couples that reveal the different ways in which men and women think and perceive the world, but Kelly and Michael, independently remembering their shared lives, provide the sharpest examples of those differences.

That divide is one of the novel's strongest themes. The nature of manhood is another. We see a bit of Michael's life as a boy, enough to understand that Michael's father conditioned Michael to believe that emotional displays are unmanly. Perhaps it is trite that Kelly's father was emotionally unavailable and that Kelly is likely drawn to Michael for that reason, but sometimes trite is truth: women are often attracted to men who, consciously or not, remind them of their fathers, just as they are often attracted to "the strong silent type" until years of silence become oppressive.

As he explores these themes, Butler constructs sentences and paragraphs that move the narrative along like a locomotive gaining steam. There isn't much of a plot here -- you wouldn't call the events that have shaped your life a "plot" -- although Butler skillfully builds a sense of dread as the story unfolds. Two stories, really, seamlessly joined: one taking place in the present that has the reader worrying about Kelly alone in her hotel room with alcohol and pills, and the intertwined life stories that brought Michael and Kelly to this point. Butler condenses the life stories to their essence by focusing on those small defining moments in lives and relationships that become forever imprinted in memory. I'm not entirely satisfied with the ending -- it seems designed to appease readers -- but that's a small complaint, an authorial choice that I can accept.

The scenes describing the end of the marriage are beautifully written but painful to read. If you're looking for a book that is light and bright and cheery, look somewhere else. If you are willing to tackle an intense, insightful examination of two individuals, this is a rewarding novel.

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