The dry wit and clever plotting that distinguished Clark's debut, The Hills at Home
, are applied with a heavy hand in this new comedy of manners, whose three parts fail to mesh. In 1992, Alden Lowe, his wife, Becky, and their teenage daughter, Julie, take up residence in an ancient castle in Prague. Alden is in charge of the finance ministry, while Becky attempts to launch fledgling entrepreneurs. The tone is high farce, as we watch Alden being ineffectual; Becky moping after an erstwhile lover, William; Julie seeking to bed her father's aide; and everybody else vying to become capitalists. By the time Becky decamps to join William in Khadafy's Libya, the reader has little empathy for any of the self-absorbed characters who have been blundering around Prague. The narrative takes hold, however, in a flashback to the lovers' triangle two decades earlier, before Becky married Alden. This is the heart of the novel, and it's tender, funny and touching, especially since Alden's grandparents are the eccentric WASP Hills readers met in the first book. But the final third of the novel, with Becky and William dreamily ensconced in an ancient villa is flat, notable mainly for its local color and political references. Clark's talent for satire shines only at intervals. Agent, Wendy Weil. (June 7)
