The Parts
Keith Ridgway
A rich, meaty Irish stew of a novel, Keith Ridgway's The Parts is an ideal choice for fall reading. At a fat, satisfying 457 pages, The Parts provides ample excuse for you to sink into an easy chair for several nights in a row, savoring the generous and flavorful blend of characters, settings, and deliciously improbable coincidences that make up this bubbling portrait of contemporary Dublin.
While beginning (and ending) with an almost obligatory nod to James Joyce—the first and last lines are the same: "Here we are"—Ridgway has concocted a sprawling set of gradually interweaving tales that readers will find pleasurably reminiscent of more recent literary sensations. Fans of Zadie Smith's White Teeth and Michael Chabon's Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay will appreciate Ridgway's blend of dense detail, sometimes wild humor, and constant tenderness. But The Parts is perhaps most akin to the novels of Tom Wolfe. Like Wolfe in Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man In Full, Ridgway effectively juxtaposes characters from different social strata to comic effect, revealing their impact on each other and making the reader look at the world through a wider-angled lens than usual. But Ridgway is a more emotion-driven writer than Wolfe, and brings a unique warmth and pathos to even his sharpest observations.
The book's title refers to the six interspersed points of view through which Ridgway tells his story: There is Delly Roche, the elderly widow of a pharmaceutical tycoon who lives—and is preparing to die—in a servant-staffed manor outside of the city. Kitty Flood, a novelist, is Delly's partner of nearly two decades, addicted to internet chat rooms and unable to focus on her fiction writing. Dr. George Addison-Blake is Delly's late husband's adopted American son, who runs illegal drug operations out of the manor. Joe Kavanagh is a depressed, recently separated radio host, whose nightly program blends music and interviews. Joe's producer, Barry, is twentysomething, gay, and trying to transcend a social life of pointless pick-ups and bath house forays. And Kevin, a.k.a. Kez, is a teenaged male prostitute from an impoverished part of town, who, against all odds, is genuinely upbeat and happy most of the time.
The plotting that intertwines the lives of these individuals is baroque almost to the point of incredulity. There is a kidnapping, a helicopter accident, a conspiracy theory, several outbursts of violence, and an unrequited love affair. But far-fetched incidents are outmatched by the precisely etched renderings of emotional awkwardness that make Ridgway's characters so believable. We remain eager to stay with them when the story gets loopy. Here is Kitty, contemplating Delly's demise and the consequent loss of her financial support: "...when she said that she did not care about money, about having any or getting any, she was telling a broad truth. But the fact was that she had no interest in money in the same way that other people have no interest in oxygen. She expected that there would always be, somehow, plenty of the stuff. Enough anyway, that she could indulge her natural tendency not to care about the stuff."
After Joe's wife and daughter leave him, he tries to console himself by cranking up his stereo, only to draw the ire of his neighbors; his apology evolves into a campaign of ingratiation, evidence of his desperation to feel connected to a family. And when Barry finds himself falling in love with Kevin, he ties himself in angsty knots over the fact that not only is he is smitten with a hustler, but with a hustler who makes a much better living than he does.
Ridgway wrings soulful humor and irony out of his foible-ridden cast in a way that never reduces them to caricatures. The sole exception is Dr. Addison-Blake, whose psychology is far more loosely sketched than that of the other players. Tellingly, Addison-Blake is also the primary engine of the plot twists that propel the book's slightly disappointing final fifth. At that late stage of the book, however, Ridgway has already won us over, proving himself a great entertainer, a master of telling details and engrossing set-pieces. Most readers will be happy to forgive the book's minor shortcomings in gratitude for the opportunity to spend time with its major characters, and the major talent who brings them so convincingly to life.
