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The Darker
Side of Our Bright and Wealthy World
As we roll the calendar over from one century to the next,
we can't help wondering (as people do every hundred years) about
the state of our society and our souls. In particular, we affluent
Americans wonder at the end of the twentieth century if we've
sacrificed our social morality to the materialistic beast. We
especially worry about the young and powerful, for they will
be the ones to shape the century waiting in the wings.
Is it true that wealthy young people have lost their sense of
values and morality? Are "yuppies" really just out
for the buck, oblivious to the social ramifications of their
actions? Are greed and glamor the only goals that motivate the
young and powerful?
David Lehner's new novel, Bright Day, addresses these
important questions as it follows the methodical rise of a young
man from failure to success, as he sheds his concerns for humanity
at each rung of the ladder.
As the novel begins, the narrator, having failed at marriage
and business, is ready for just about anything. With no plans
or desires, he returns from abroad to the States with the hope
that his old prep school friends can give him enough work to
get him back on his feet. Little does he expect to wind up smack
in the middle of a mysterious business dealing in who knows what.
One thing is certain, though: This is a business to make money
in, and our hero is soon collecting it faster than he can spend
it or even deposit it. Slipping nine thousand dollars a week
into his account and stowing the rest in a Miami safe-deposit
box, he doesn't concern himself much with the assignments he's
given: trading cars for cash and sacks of white sand; paying
cash for a dozen refrigerated briefcases; delivering a young
peasant girl into the hands of a surgeon with half-a-dozen refrigerated
briefcases close by; attending a party to meet a man who is discovered
brutally murdered on the beach. Our narrator's not sure what
to make of all this, but running through it all is the growing
sense that these various activities are interrelated and serve
some larger political purpose. The stakes are never too high,
though, when you stay on the outside and don't ask too many questions.
David Lehner has written an important book about the state of
American spiritual affairs at the turn of the century. It is
also a fast-paced political thriller, set in an amoral business
world where fortunes are made while lives are undone. Bright
Day is a frightening novel, and a prophetic warning. What
looks bright may be dark indeed.
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