'Singing Into the Piano'
by Ted Mooney
Knopf, $25
Ted Mooney's new novel begins with an improbable but undeniably arresting scene: A young couple attending a crowded political fund raiser engage in a conspicuous sexual act as they listen to Santiago Diaz, a former soccer hero-turned-Mexican presidential candidate, give a speech. Observing the couple from the podium, Diaz is captivated by their recklessness and struggles to complete his speech without breaking his concentration.
When the beautiful young woman leaves her purse behind, Diaz has his staff locate the couple and invites them to breakfast with him and his wife Mercedes, launching a slow-motion dance between the two couples as they are drawn toward each other for different, and not entirely clear, reasons.
Edith, a United Nations translator with a penchant for exhibitionism, and Andrew, her lawyer-boyfriend, are fascinated with the celebrity and intrigue of the fast-moving campaign. Diaz, who recognizes something of himself in Edith and her behavior, and Mercedes are at the same time intrigued by this audacious American couple.
Against a backdrop of South American environmental politics and the Mexican presidential campaign itself, the novel unfolds first in New York, later in Mexico City, and finally on the border between the two countries. Plagued by the high-level defection of the campaign manager, as well as Diaz's disastrous appearance on an American talk show, the Diaz campaign ultimately succeeds in recovering its footing, but only at a high cost.
Edith and Andrew, standing both literally and figuratively on the border between two worlds, are confronted by violence and ambiguity that runs far deeper than they had imagined. By book's end, both couples are left amid the wreckage of their expectations.
Mooney's prose is at once lyrical and annoying. The dialogue is strikingly, almost disturbingly real, but this grace is undermined by the gauzy, vague progress of the novel itself.
The Diaz campaign is populated by largely undefined campaign workers clacking on laptops or whispering into cell phones, but little of this effort appears to interest or involve the candidate himself. Without a definition of the issues for which the candidate stands, or even the politics involved, the violent climax of the novel falls flat.
Moreover, Mooney's not-so-subtle efforts to draw analogies between sex and politics, while certainly timely and thought-provoking, are incomplete and largely unexplored. "Singing Into the Piano" ultimately fails to live up to its promise, though it does offer flashing dialogue, memorable imagery and engaging writing.
