Toronto Star
Tracy Nesdoly
November 13, 2004
Human Capital by Stephen Amidon (HarperCollins Canada, 375 pages, $34.95) is truly marvellous. It traces the choices made by a group of ambitious, wealthy people who do all they can to avoid paying for their mistakes, and the toll taken when a child (well, a teen) tries the same sophisticated game.
One of the characters, Drew Hagel, is that most dangerous of men, the "nice guy." He can't quite face up to failure, and can't quite own up to the fact he's broke and made a promise he can't keep that will cost him his house, beloved by his last-chance second wife. Through no credit of his own, Hagel has a spectacular daughter, Shannon, whom he sells out whenever he finds his proverbial back against the proverbial wall. Yet each of his terrible decisions is so logical, so easy, so perfectly the right way to get out of a jam. The outcome, well, you'd have to agree with him that it's just a drag and hardly fair, really.
Shannon finds herself in a terrible dilemma she, too, is ill-equipped to manage. Her boyfriend, whom modern parlance would call an "at-risk" teen (meaning he could go either way in a hurry) accidentally hits a cyclist while driving a vehicle he shouldn't be. She and her boyfriend live through the exquisite agony of waiting to learn whether the cyclist lives or dies, and her desire to protect the boy she loves and another at-risk boy - this one rich and troubled - create the moral tension against which her father's decisions are juxtaposed. She tries her best to save a soul, he tries his best to save face and, again, sells her out in the process.
Tracy Nesdoly
November 13, 2004
Human Capital by Stephen Amidon (HarperCollins Canada, 375 pages, $34.95) is truly marvellous. It traces the choices made by a group of ambitious, wealthy people who do all they can to avoid paying for their mistakes, and the toll taken when a child (well, a teen) tries the same sophisticated game.
One of the characters, Drew Hagel, is that most dangerous of men, the "nice guy." He can't quite face up to failure, and can't quite own up to the fact he's broke and made a promise he can't keep that will cost him his house, beloved by his last-chance second wife. Through no credit of his own, Hagel has a spectacular daughter, Shannon, whom he sells out whenever he finds his proverbial back against the proverbial wall. Yet each of his terrible decisions is so logical, so easy, so perfectly the right way to get out of a jam. The outcome, well, you'd have to agree with him that it's just a drag and hardly fair, really.
Shannon finds herself in a terrible dilemma she, too, is ill-equipped to manage. Her boyfriend, whom modern parlance would call an "at-risk" teen (meaning he could go either way in a hurry) accidentally hits a cyclist while driving a vehicle he shouldn't be. She and her boyfriend live through the exquisite agony of waiting to learn whether the cyclist lives or dies, and her desire to protect the boy she loves and another at-risk boy - this one rich and troubled - create the moral tension against which her father's decisions are juxtaposed. She tries her best to save a soul, he tries his best to save face and, again, sells her out in the process.