The Up and Comer Book

Don't let the fact that Howard Roughan's highly impressive The Up and Comer has been optioned for a film (starring Michael Douglas) put you off. Chances are that if you allow the author to lay his spell upon you (and most readers will not find that at all difficult), your image of handsome, stylish Philip Randall will be nothing like any movie star. When so many novels these days read as mere blueprints for the subsequent movie, this is very much a work of fiction that functions on its own terms. That Roughan's novel refuses to fit comfortably into any category is one of its primary virtues. By marrying a rich Manhattanite, Philip Randall has secured something of a dream existence, enjoying a high-powered job at a Manhattan law firm, a desirable loft in Chelsea and even a mistress who satisfies his every erotic need. But his lover Jessica is also married to his best friend, and when an ex-friend produces blackmailing photographic proof of the affair, Philip realises that his privileged existence may be about to collapse around him. And his troubles are increased when a savage murder puts him in the middle of a massive police investigation. There are elements of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities in the author's cold-eyed exposure of the excesses of the Manhattan rich. Even though the bones of the plot may be that of a thriller, it's Roughan's skills as a social commentator and satirist that really distinguish his tale. Certain concepts stand just as much chance of passing into our consciousness as did many in Tom Wolfe's magnum opus: Sometime during my teens I created in my mind a sliding scale of what I called--for lack of originality--Risk Factors. The scale numbered from 1 to 10. For instance, something like... oh, I don't know, crossing the Sahara on foot, was a Risk Factor 10. Shoplifting the Talking Heads' latest album, meanwhile, was a Risk Factor 1. Both dangerous, of course, just not to the same degree. Ever since then I'd use this scale as a quick and orderly way to assess all the risks that came along in my life. From there I could better determine which ones were worth taking. My affair with Jessica had suddenly jumped from a Risk Factor 5 to Risk Factor 6... --Barry Forshaw Read More