Coming home is usually a metaphor for realizing what cannot be recaptured, not salvation. But recognizing and then coming to terms with the values that build family are at the soul of “Responsible Men.” Edward Schwarzschild, in his debut novel, writes with straight-forward affection of values and ethics lost and found.
The Wolinsky brothers, Caleb and Abe, made their living selling textiles. Based in Philadelphia, they never struck it rich working with manufacturers in their corner of the Northeast, but they made an honest living. Caleb’s son, Max, inherited some of his father’s ability to inspire trust in strangers. Unfortunately, he’s turned the talent to conning them out of money.
Max hasn’t fully come to terms with his divorce when his son’s bar mitzvah brings him from Florida back to Philadelphia. His father and uncle are now old men, and they could use some financial support. Abe has suffered a stroke. One con, Max thinks, and he’ll be able to buy the electric scooter his uncle needs. He’s already begun to work his marks, pitching a non-existent beachfront condo on the Jersey shore.
But life, as it will, gets in the way. The bar mitzvah and its attendant celebration all serve to highlight the connections that Max has lost. His son, Nathan, is on the verge of getting into trouble. School is out, his ex-wife and her fiancé are going to Hawaii for the summer, and Nathan has, against his wishes, been enrolled in their temple’s Boy Scout troop, one that keeps kosher on camping trips. And if things aren’t looking complicated enough, Max meets Estelle and finds himself confessing his con game to a woman he thinks he might want to keep around. She is not impressed.
The leader of the scout troop, Mervyn Spiller, seems an unusual role model for the boys. He’s another salesman, and items not usually associated with scouting, kitchen knives and cookware, line the walls of his office in the basement of the temple. The boys are kept busy, though not always well-supervised. And Spiller, who presents himself as Abe’s long-time friend, seems to want Max in on a business deal. But the first requirement of Max’s involvement is that he drop his real estate scam.
Schwarzschild has a lot going on in “Responsible Men,” and the title applies in different ways to his cast of characters. Caleb and Abe, together raising Max after the death of his mother, worked hard in a difficult profession to build a life and a family. They are the embodiment of rising to responsibility.
That the son should have adopted the sales skills of his father, but not the ethic, is one of the ironies of parenting. Max has not demonstrated the values of his family, but as he looks at his maturing son, he has to acknowledge the man he’s become. Now he’s faced with wanting to do the right thing on many fronts, but the path he’s on won’t allow him to stand tall in front of anyone he values. Spiller’s offer is perhaps a door to redemption, but there is a lot about what’s going on with the troop that has the feel of just another scam.
“Responsible Men” generally works, not in the least because Schwarzschild writes with such affection for the characters and their locale. Max seems more lost than bad, and his return to family provides the rudder he needs to refocus his life.
It is not an easy path; Max has picked up bad habits and bad friends along the way. But the writing is so clean and convincing that it is hard not to want everything to come out right in the end. It’s OK that the novel’s closing seems a bit too clean. Max and his family are guys who not only grow, they grow on the reader and it’s good to know that all these kids, at their respective ages, are ultimately going to be all right.
Robin Vidimos is a freelance writer who reviews books for The Denver Post and Buzz in the ‘Burbs.
Responsible Men
By Edward Schwarzschild
Algonquin, 329 pages, $23.95
