Western Alliances, Wilton Barnhardt
Western Alliances, Wilton Barnhardt
List: $32.99 | Sale: $23.10
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Western Alliances
A Novel

Author: Wilton Barnhardt

Narrator: Caroline Hewitt

Unabridged: 15 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/01/2023


Synopsis

"Caroline Hewitt narrates this tale of the wealthy Costa family so intimately that listeners will be convinced she has insider status with this dysfunctional group."- AudioFile

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Lookaway, Lookaway, Wilton Barnhardt’s Western Alliances is a vivid portrait of a wealthy family set against the backdrop of the 2008 financial crisis. This laugh-out-loud, darkly funny novel follows the Costa family—whose members are every bit as richly absurd as the characters in HBO’s Succession.

Salvador, the patriarch, runs one of Wall Street’s biggest banks the summer before everything collapses; Roberto and Rachel, his two children, have never worked a day in their lives; and Lena, his ex-wife, is a scheming hypochondriac. Part travelogue, part epic family drama, the novel follows Roberto and Rachel across Europe as the two dilettantes come to terms with their father’s choices and the repercussions of his actions.

Oozing with his signature satire and biting wit, Barnhardt invites listeners on a literary romp from an elegant Paris apartment to a hilariously-inept London hotel, ancient churches and crypts to gleaming Mediterranean coasts, hot dog stands in Providence, Rhode Island to the best places in Manhattan, and terrifying encounters in the Serbian countryside to dangerous liaisons in Moscow, as two grown-up rich kids are forced to come of age at last. In Western Alliances Barnhardt he delivers a riveting saga examining privilege, loyalty, ambition, and what family members owe to one another.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

About Wilton Barnhardt

Wilton Barnhardt is the author of Lookaway, Lookaway, a New York Times bestseller. His previous novels are Gospel, Show World, and Emma Who Saved My Life. A native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he teaches fiction in the master of fine arts in creative writing program at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where he lives.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Cat

This story is about a well-to-do family whose patriarch loses everything during the Wall Street crash. His two kids, Roberto and Rachel, struggle through what most regular people can’t even relate to- the lack of unlimited funds from Daddy. While certain scenarios made me chuckle, I was confused for......more

Goodreads review by Paula

Readers of this book will definitely be reminded of HBO's Succession, although Western Alliances characters are funnier. They happily screw each other over, even the mother, although the father, Sal, seems to want what is best for his family. Roberto's descriptions of Europe made me desperate to trav......more

Goodreads review by Emma

Roberto Costa's father is CEO of a Wall St bank during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Up to that point, he and his sister Rachel have lived somewhat easy trust fund lives, wandering throughout Europe cataloguing the art and culture. When Roberto learns that his trust fund is in jeopardy, he goes on......more


Quotes

"[D]eftly plotted . . . [and] great fun. . . A likable, smart, wide-ranging ramble." --Kirkus

“There’s a line in this capacious, deeply satisfying and riotous novel about how the U.S ‘has skipped smilingly through history.’ Well, that’s been my experience reading through this story about the adventures, crossing the wide world, of Roberto and Rachel Costa. Wilton Barnhardt’s novel belongs on the first shelf of our grownup pleasures. Don’t miss it." --Richard Bausch, PEN/Malamud award-winning author of The Last Good Time