BookBrowse Reviews This Is How It Really Sounds by Stuart Archer Cohen

BookBrowse:

A novel where the worlds of wealth, pop-culture celebrity, and physical prowess collide in a realm that is shared between three men, each in search of his Other Life.

This is the story of three Pete Harringtons.

The first Pete Harrington is like Richie Rich, a poor little rich boy. He's living the good life in Shanghai sitting on a pretty pile of cash — three hundred million dollars he made from his hedge-fund trading firm, Crossroads Partners, before the Great Recession brought things tumbling down.

On the other hand, the second Pete Harrington is a rich little poor boy. Loaded with talent, he is an extreme skier who stands on the cusp of striking it big but doesn't have much in terms of material wealth.

The third Pete Harrington is a mix of both. Once upon a time, he was a huge pop sensation but now he is a washed-out drug addict with a girl on each arm, hoping to rest on his past glory and equally important, his money.

One thread, above all, unifies these characters: each Pete Harrington is disgruntled with the cards he has been dealt and often wants out. This grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side approach to the everyday is no mild mid-life crisis that can be easily dismissed. It is strong enough for the Pete Harringtons to act on their impulses and take risks, to prove to at least their own selves that their lives still have some excitement and spontaneity.

If much of the novel sounds like a Debbie Downer, rest assured that it is not. Author Stuart Archer Cohen infuses the narrative with enough hijinks and adrenaline-loaded sequences to keep the reader hooked. Even if the high-wire act of juggling three different Pete Harringtons might seem like a bit much, Cohen pulls it off with aplomb – carving specific quirks and character traits, enough for each to be instantly recognizable, yet distinct from the other two.

Robert Frost might have made famous the notion of "The Road Not Taken," but most human beings have had at least a mild case of the "Pete Harringtons." In essence, the book's fundamental theme — of missed opportunities and accompanying regret — does not feel novel. Couched as it is in Cohen's fast-paced writing, it sometimes even comes across as a tad glib. "It's so simple!", banker Pete Harrington's Chinese tutor tells him while in Shanghai. "You keep looking for the Other Life. But your own life is the other life." In essence, this central moral of the story is no profound revelation. Besides, as Cohen expertly shows, fate plays as much of a role in his characters' outcomes, as conscious choice.

If Cohen's novel might not be the perfect vehicle to tease out the subtle differences between destiny and impulse, or between happiness and contentment, it is nevertheless a finely tuned instrument where the Pete Harringtons' paths intersect in unexpected ways. Cohen also expertly uses recurring motifs — a warm, welcoming home and even a magazine advertisement — to unite his stories and transport readers seamlessly from one character to the other. By setting such everyday motifs in different lives and different situations, (the magazine ad, for example, shows up both in Shanghai and Alaska), the reader is left to connect the dots — to imagine not just the novel's three central characters but to adopt a wide-angle perspective and marvel at the many seemingly banal facets that make up each special life. The way that Cohen so fluidly places this responsibility on the reader's shoulder is his biggest strength and the novel's most soulful note.

The cinematic writing and fast-paced plot make This Is How It Really Sounds a great beach read and should work well as basis for a blockbuster movie too.

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in June 2015, and has been updated for the April 2016 edition. Click here to go to this issue.