A Changed Man
by Francine Prose
HarperCollins, March 2005
432 pp.
Foreign rights sold to:
UK to Allison & Busby
French to Metaille
On an unseasonably warm spring afternoon, a young neo-Nazi named Vincent Nolan walks into the Manhattan office of World Brotherhood Watch, a human rights foundation headed by a charismatic Holocaust survivor, Meyer Maslow. Vincent announces that he wants to make a radical change in his life. But what is Maslow to make of this rough-looking stranger who claims to have read Maslow’s books, who has Waffen-SS tattoos under his shirtsleeves, and who says that his mission is to save guys like him from becoming guys like him?
As he gradually turns into the sort of person who might actually be able to do that, Vincent also transforms those around him: Maslow, who fears that heroism has become a desk job; Bonnie Kalen, the foundation’s fund-raiser, a divorced single mother and a devoted believer in Maslow’s crusade against intolerance and injustice; and Bonnie’s teenage son, Danny, whose take on the world around him is at once openhearted, sharp-eyed, and as fundamentally decent as his mother’s.
Masterfully plotted, darkly comic, A Changed Man illuminates the everyday transactions in our lives, exposing what remains invisible in plain sight in our drug-addled and media-driven culture. Remarkable for the author’s tender sympathy for her characters, A Changed Man poses the essential questions: What constitutes a life worth living? Is it possible to change? What does it mean to be a moral human being? The fearless intelligence, wit, and humanity that inform this novel make it Francine Prose’s most accomplished yet.
Quotes and Reviews:
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Prose (Blue Angel; The Lives of the Muses) tests assumptions about class, hatred and the possibility of change in her latest novel, a good-natured satire of liberal pieties, the radical right and the fund-raising world. The "changed man" of the title is Vincent Nolan, a 32-year-old tattooed ex-skinhead who appears one morning in the New York offices of World Brotherhood Watch, a foundation headed by Meyer Maslow, a Holocaust survivor. Vincent declares that he has had a personal conversion (never mind that it was triggered by a heavy dose of Ecstasy) and wants to work with the foundation to "save guys like me from becoming guys like me." Meyer takes Vincent on faith—and convinces Bonnie Kalen, the foundation’s fund-raiser, to put Vincent up in the suburban home she shares with her two sons, Max, 12, and Danny, 16. Prose tears into this unusual premise with the piercing wit that has become her trademark. Vincent becomes a media darling of sorts, and everyone wants a piece of him: the liberal donors and the television talk shows; Meyer, a figurehead so celebrated that even his close friends kiss up to him; and maybe even divorced Bonnie, who finds herself drawn to Vincent’s charms. In more hostile pursuit of Vincent is his cousin Raymond, a member of the Aryan Resistance Movement, from which Vincent stole a truck, drugs and cash. In these circumstances, can a man truly change? And what is change—not only for Vincent but for the other principals as well? Prose doesn’t shy away from exposing the vanities and banalities behind the drive to do good. Fortunately, her characters are sturdy enough to bear the weight of the baggage she piles on them. Her lively skewering of a whole cross-section of society ensures that this tale hits comic high notes even as it probes serious issues.
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* The changed man in Prose’s riotously funny new novel is Vincent Nolan, a neo-Nazi who walks into a human rights foundation and announces that he wishes to renounce his previous way of life. His well-rehearsed pitch, however, is missing a few key details, such as the fact that his moment of conversion occurred while he was high on Ecstasy and that his fellow racists in the Aryan Brotherhood, far from being menacing thugs, are really a bunch of pathetic, insecure guys who are broke and drink way too much beer. The foundation is headed by charismatic author and Holocaust survivor Meyer Maslow, who sees in Vincent a way to raise his book sales and his group’s profile. Maslow’s capable, put-upon assistant, single-mother Bonnie Kalen, usually beset by a host of obsessive worries about her children, is so blinkered by her idealism and her worship of Meyer that she immediately agrees to let Vincent stay at her house, where her teen sons are just thrilled to see "some geek leaning his nasty tattooed arms all over the kitchen table." In the glare of the ensuing media firestorm, however, all of the characters find a way to be a little bit braver, a little less petty, and a lot more openhearted. Like novelist Richard Russo, Prose uses humor to light up key social issues, to skewer smugness, and to create characters whose flaws only add to their depth and richness. This may well be Prose’s best novel to date. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
“Wonderful, dark, hilarious... By the end of this fabulous novel, Prose’s fierce intelligence, brilliant storytelling and sharp characterization will not only provoke her readers into the oohs and ahs of recognition but will also offer them something profound." Boston Sunday Globe: February 27, 2005
"The best kind of social satire: razor sharp, funny, and merciless." Grade: 4 Stars People Magazine: March 7, 2005
"A lively, deftly constructed modern fairy tale." Grade: Three and a half Stars New York Post: February 27, 2005
"Her eye is as sharp as Tom Wolfe’s circa ’Bonfire of the Vanities...’ This book has it all: great characters, dark humor, a racing plot and important themes. I don’t think you can ask for much more than that." Newsday: February 27, 2005
"An excellent social novel." New York Sun: March 2, 2005