Favorite Sons

Against the backdrop of a changing South, two ambitious men share an intense, troubled friendship over four decades in this interesting, though flawed, first novel of fatherhood, rivalry, family secrets and electoral politics. Worth Patterson, whose grandfather built the city of Fairington, N.C., is an instinctively shrewd leader and politician. Roger Albright, scion of an aristocratic but impoverished Fairington clan, is a driven intellectual with dreams of wealth. Fraternity brothers and best friends in the late 1930s, the young men also have a close relationship with eccentric, brilliant sociology professor Taliaferro Ogden, who presides over a powerful political organization. Through war, rivalry in love, financial hardship and family scandal, the two remain close as they ascend to positions of power--Roger as a multi-millionaire industrialist, Worth as a U.S. senator. Russell writes knowingly of the dynamics of southern politics and the rise of the New Right. But his narrative becomes clumsy when he shifts points of view or incorporates historical documents, and his underdeveloped characters at times seem mere agents of the plot. (Sept.)