ROADS OF THE HEART

Tilghman (The Way People Run, 1999, etc.) returns to the subject of the nature of family in this tale about a less-than-perfect father who, approaching death, sets out to correct the damage he’s done to his loved ones.

Former Maryland state senator Frank Alwin is one of those larger-than-life characters whose appetites and ambition have wreaked havoc on his family and himself. His first wife, the mother of his son and two daughters, left him when she could no longer live with the humiliation of his womanizing. His career fell apart when the state attorney general learned from an unknown source that Frank was using staffing money to pay off “a bimbo.” Now an aging stroke victim, Frank convinces his son Eric to take him on a car expedition to make final amends. Eric, who’s given up his early scholarly ambition to run an ad agency, has marital and career difficulties of his own. His wife is threatening to leave him, he foolishly sleeps with one of his employees and then ends it badly, his partner and some of his best staff are bolting from the agency. Nevertheless, Eric sets out with Frank and his nurse on what turns out to be a trip into the past. Frank makes peace not only with Eric’s mother, but also with Eric’s younger sister Poppy, who turns out to be the one who revealed Frank’s misdeed to the authorities as revenge for his emotional abandonment. Then comes the revelation of, and reconciliation with, Frank’s illegitimate son by the bimbo. By the time Frank’s health gives out, the family has found a new balance, and Eric has reunited with his wife and saved his company. The resolutions come improbably easily, considering the amount of angst that preceded them.

Lots of musing but very little action.