Falling Sideways is the second book from Thomas E. Kennedy’s Copenhagen Quartet to be published in the U.S., following the publication of In the Company of Angels last year (2010). Falling Sideways was originally published as Danish Fall and was the last book of the Quartet. I’m not sure what the logic is behind publishing the books in the U.S. out of the original order. From what I can tell, the books stand alone in terms of plot, so you don’t lose anything story wise. The books follow the course of the seasons in their original order.
Falling Sideways is marketed as a book about office politics, in particular the effects of downsizing, but I think that does the book a huge disservice. It is true that the shady corporation nicknamed the Tank connects all of the characters in one way or another, but that is only the shell of the book. Kennedy is more interested in his characters and their relationships with one another.
Martin Kampman, the CEO of the Tank, is an axe-man. He was brought in several years ago and has now gotten to know the operations and the employees enough to determine how to trim the fat, position yes-men, and improve the Tank’s financial standing. Kampman is a ruthless and controlling dictator who repeatedly refers to himself as “the man who takes care of things.” He is a character you love to hate. He prides himself at waking earlier than everyone else, running miles to work, and always being the last to leave. He takes mental notes on everyone’s strengths and weaknesses based on his stringent standards. He is a master of controlling emotions and manipulating people and situations to suit his purposes. However, Kampman’s son Adam suddenly rebels, which challenges Kampman’s sick need for control and changes the entire family.
Frederick Breathwaite, an American and the protagonist if one must be named, is the international consultant at the Tank. He loves his wife, his cigars, his expensive whiskey, and his youngest son, Jes. Breathwaite, who has lost most of his passion for life, is a casualty of Kampman’s political maneuvering. He will lose his job, but he wants to set up his son with a career before he goes. Jes, like Adam, can’t relate to anything his father has to offer. Jes works for an Afghan in a key and heel bar and lives the life of a bohemian. Breathwaite’s reflections are my favorites in the book. He describes his son:
He’d dabbled in post-modernism, and he’d dabbled in post-traditionalilsm and in post-colonialism, and he’d dabbled in post-ethnicity and in behavioristic post-ethicism and no doubt in post-postism, too, leading up to pre-sim, retro-ism, which could end only in now-ism, and then on to neo-nowism ad infinitum, until time stops its survey of all the world. As far as Breathwaite could determine, he was a very bright kid with an understanding of everything and a grasp of nothing.
Harold Jaegar is the third character the book flows around, but he is in a much more minor role. Jaegar appears to be Kampman’s foil and comic relief. Kampman promotes Jaegar, not realizing the man is nothing like himself. Jaegar reflects on the weekly meetings the department heads have at the Tank, in which everyone mumbles:
Here, thought Jaegar, we speak quietly about important things, though unfortunately not distinctly enough to be understood.
Where Kampman must have complete control, Jaegar has no control over his lust for women. He pines after the head of accounting. He relieves himself in the rarely used bathroom. Jaegar realizes his weaknesses and the cost (he has already lost a wealthy wife and his two little girls), but he is helpless to his libido. The result is hilarious and disastrous.
The relationships all suffer from lack of communication and the inability of ever really and truly knowing another human being; whether it’s fathers and sons, Mrs. Kampman trying to get behind her husband’s mask, or the head of accounting secretly watching her husband pick his nose. For example, Breathwaite doesn’t tell his wife he is losing his job, and the news is broken to her at a party. They discuss it:
“…you lied, Fred. You didn’t tell me. For how long?”
“It wasn’t a lie, exactly.”
“You can lie by not telling something, too.”
“I wanted to spare you.”
“You wanted to spare yourself.”
The point may be that selfishness- the need for control and respect, the need for love and appreciation, the need for pleasure and satisfaction- is often what gets in the way of our relationships and communication.
As part of the Copenhagen Quartet, the book is full of beautiful descriptions of the city in autumn. If you read In the Company of Angels, which takes place in summer, you will recognize many of the same locales through the autumn lens. Another element of the book I enjoyed was the constant references to literature: V.S. Naipaul, Joyce, Kerouac, Rilke, and the list goes on. I think all of these were made by Breathwaite and his son, Jes. Ultimately, of the two books published in the U.S. so far, I enjoyed this one the most.
