Correspondence: An Adventure in Letters
Hall's (Belief: A Memoir) new novel unfolds in e-mails between Larry Dickerson, a loquacious retired bank clerk, and Stephen Nicholls, an often pedantic but patient employee at Christie's from whom Dickerson wants an appraisal of his great-great-great grandfather's correspondence with some of the most famous figures of the 19th century. Though their e-mails span more than one year, they never build to have the impact of the best epistolary works, which vividly illuminate time and place. Expected comparisons between Americans and Brits appear (baseball, cricket, vocabulary) along with gentle humor, repetitive discursions, and Dickerson's increasing interest in—and reluctance to part with—the words of writers including Dickens, Eliot, Thackeray, and Darwin. The novel's most salient character, Charlie Dover, another Christie's employee, isn't introduced until late in the game, and an 11th-hour threat to the deal is resolved easily and with few consequences. Rather than emerging as one man's believable journey into the pleasures of researching Victorianism, or as a quirky, behind-the-scenes examination of one of the most storied auction houses, Hall's latest is an entertaining novelty. (Mar.)