Book summary

The protagonist of this novel of self-deception and loneliness is Albert Schmidt, a widowed, retired lawyer in his 60s, who has shown neither affection nor tolerance to his daughter, Charlotte. Now, she is married to a Jewish lawyer whose warm family provides her with what she has never had. Meanwhile, Schmidt's life is invaded by the young Puerto Rican waitress with whom he is infatuated. This novel was nominated for the 1996 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.

Media reviews

"If the sorrows of old 'Schmidtie' strike us as somewhat short of fully tragic, less than deeply moving, it's clearly intentional; Begley means us to keep our distance--to withhold our sympathies--from his smug, officious hero....It's this that makes Begley's novel most interesting and nervy. In an era in which critics enjoin writers to make their characters appealing...it takes considerable bravery to ignore such critical admonitions....His novel is comical, tough, unsparing; it's as if Louis Auchincloss had exchanged the kid gloves for brass knuckles."