Gordon Haber

I suppose it is one of those ironies that I bought False Economies at a discount price. A false economy indeed - because I disliked every minute of it.

Haber's protagonist, David Bergmann, is a stereotypical New York Jew who finds himself, at the age of 24, stuck in London. He is estranged from his family, low on money, working a dead-end job as a bartender, and in lust with an older woman whose has a child. The story follows Bergmann's downward spiral as he deals with a series of loser friends who lead him, with utter predictability, into utter degradation.

Haber tries to make all this funny, but it's not. Instead, it's dreary and boring and predictable. The characters are unlikable and lack any sort of complexity, and Bergmann himself seems to realize this when he contemplates the fact that he is an "unserious" person toward the end of the story. The story even ends on a anticlimactic note, as if Haber had no idea what he wanted to do with the story once Bergmann hit rock bottom.

Haber's writing is not bad, but his characters and story are really poor in this instance. What is most disappointing, however, is the feeling that an opportunity was missed. A satire about false economies in Thatcher's London? That was what hooked me in the first place - and yet Haber makes almost nothing of this golden opportunity, choosing instead to focus on the tedious lusts of his boring, unserious protagonist.… (mer)