Netherland

Starred review from March 3, 2008
Hans van den Broek, the Dutch-born narrator of O'Neill's dense, intelligent novel, observes of his friend, Chuck Ramkissoon, a self-mythologizing entrepreneur-gangster, that “he never quite believed that people would sooner not have their understanding of the world blown up, even by Chuck Ramkissoon.” The image of one's understanding of the world being blown up is poignant—this is Hans's fate after 9/11. He and wife Rachel abandon their downtown loft, and, soon, Rachel leaves him behind at their temporary residence, the Chelsea Hotel, taking their son, Jake, back to London. Hans, an equities analyst, is at loose ends without Rachel, and in the two years he remains Rachel-less in New York City, he gets swept up by Chuck, a Trinidadian expatriate Hans meets at a cricket match. Chuck's dream is to build a cricket stadium in Brooklyn; in the meantime, he operates as a factotum for a Russian gangster. The unlikely (and doomed from the novel's outset) friendship rises and falls in tandem with Hans's marriage, which falls and then, gradually, rises again. O'Neill (This Is the Life
) offers an outsider's view of New York bursting with wisdom, authenticity and a sobering jolt of realism.

May 15, 2008
Hans van den Broek, the main character in this ruminative third novel (and fourth book) by Irish/Turkish/English author O'Neill ("Blood-Dark Track"), is a Dutch-transplanted Londoner working in New York City at the start of the 21st century. Though a successful equities analyst, Hans is given more to reverie than to action. When his wife announces she is taking their young son back to London, Hans, stunned, remains in New York. He gets drawn into a friendship of sorts with Trinidadian entrepreneur Chuck Ramkissoon, who dreams of making cricket a great American sport, and whoHans hears lateris eventually found dead in a canal. Hans's meandering, somewhat old-fashioned narrative takes a patient reader in and out of past and present: from his cricket-playing, fatherless childhood through his distant relationship with his mother, rocky marriage, and his own fatherhood, gradually revealing the appeal of the slowly unfolding game of cricket and fast-talking Chuck Ramkissoon to a man in his early thirties finding his way in a post-9/11 world. Recommended for literary fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/15/08.]Laurie A. Cavanaugh, Brockton P.L., MA

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2008
In this novel set in post-9/11 New York City, Dutch banker Hans has been abandoned by his wife and son, who have decamped to London. Defeated by his seemingly failed marriage, Hans takes up residence at the Chelsea Hotel and entertains his childhood love of cricket by joining a league made up of West Indian New Yorkers. Here he meets Chuck, a charismatic Trinidadian entrepreneur who introduces him to the outer reaches of New Yorks boroughs and marginal cultures, while creating a friendship with Hans that is both perplexing and satisfying. ONeills poignant and tragic vision of New York is paired beautifully with the protagonists reflection on his past failures and moments of happiness. Through the authors outsider vision of the city, New Yorks particular blend of cultural oddities and multifarious inhabitants are brought to the surface, revealing something touching and distinct about contemporary life. Netherland is a powerful merger of seen and unseen struggles, the unraveling of an American dream, and one mans rebirth through it all.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)

Starred review from October 27, 2008
Tony award–winner Jefferson Mays (I Am My Own Wife
) follows the lead of author O’Neill for his reading of the lauded novel about Dutchman Hans van der Broek and the unusual bond he forms with fellow cricket buff and New York dreamer extraordinaire Chuck Ramkissoon. O’Neill’s crisp, layered narrative and interest in the less-traveled byways of Brooklyn are reflected in Mays’s understated take on Hans’s narration (interestingly, he does not attempt a Dutch accent); Chuck’s light, fruity Caribbean accent; and the denser accent of Chuck’s wife. Mays is nothing if not a talented performer, and while there may be less than meets the eye to O’Neill’s celebrated work, Mays’s reading is a joy. A Pantheon hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 3).