James Packer bio leads our 3 books to read this month
A raw biography, a sharp look at modern America and a question about being too kind. Our three book reviews of the month.
The Price of Fortune: The Untold Story of Being James Packer
Damon Kitney
HarperCollins
James Packer calls Warren Beatty "Dad". That is just one of many fascinating revelations in The Price of Fortune, Australian financial journalist Damon Kitney's biography of James Packer. Unlike previous books, this was written with Packer's co-operation, which explains why Kitney had unprecedented access to everyone from his ex-wives, Jodhi Meares and Erica Packer, to a wide network of friends and business associates here and overseas, including Lachlan Murdoch, David Gonski and Kerry Stokes.
The book is divided thematically. As well as the triumphs, there are detailed accounts of Packer's (mis)adventures in Beverly Hills, Macau and Israel, where he became close to Benjamin Netanyahu, the most impressive person, Packer says, that he's ever met. Kitney describes how the collapse of One.Tel, the GFC and other business and personal woes contributed to Packer's three nervous breakdowns, the most recent prompting his March 2018 decision to stand down from the Crown board. Packer, Kitney notes, shows a capacity for self-reflection – see, for example, his observation that, "I fall in love with people in business and end up being too loyal to them". Friends agree with him on that.
There are personal details as well – although here Packer is less forthcoming. He feels "enormous guilt" over the break-up of his second marriage to Erica, without explaining why. Interestingly, he has maintained close relationships with both of his ex-wives, whom he describes as his "best friends", and who have nothing but good to say of him. He also emerges as a devoted father to his three young children.
The ghost of his father looms large. James describes Kerry as "a living legend" and a "wonderful father". Significantly, he tells Kitney: "It is pretty clear that Dad was better than me at almost everything."
A number of Packer's friends wish that he could get past this legacy issue and be proud of his own achievements, without comparing them to his father's. The book is a revealing portrait of a complex man. Lachlan Murdoch puts it well: "If he can control his weaknesses… he is one of the great businessmen in the world today."
Lake Success
Gary Shteyngart
Hamish Hamilton
This novel by American writer Gary Shteyngart, author of the bestselling memoir, Little Failure¸ is both a wickedly funny take of the lives of the Manhattan elite and a poignant portrait of life with a disabled child. Set in 2016, against the background of the United States election, Lake Success is clever social satire in the mould of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities – but with more heart.
Anti-hero Barry Cohen, a 40-something hedge-fund manager, and his beautiful Indian-born wife Seema live in an apartment which, "like a long-haul jet" is "divided into economy, business and first". Their affluent lifestyle is under threat due to a dodgy business deal of Barry's and a recent diagnosis of their three-year-old-son Shiva as severely autistic. Following a disastrous (hilarious) dinner party, Barry takes off on a trip across America on a Greyhound bus in pursuit of his college girlfriend, Layla. Meanwhile, Seema embarks on an affair with a raffish writer as she deals with the day-to-day reality of Shiva's condition. A page-turning, razor-sharp look at modern America.
The Children's House
Alice Nelson
Vintage Books
Australian writer Alice Nelson's second novel is a finely wrought meditation on family, love, motherhood and responsibility. Set mainly in Harlem, New York in 1997, it also references the war in Rwanda three years earlier.
Marina is an academic and writer and her husband, Jacob, is a psychoanalyst. Married for almost a decade, they share a deep intimacy, "as if they had both consented unconsciously to be their best selves" (what a lovely concept) and live in Harlem with Jacob's teenage son, Ben. Both are scarred by their pasts.
When Marina meets Constance, a refugee from Rwanda, and her young son, Gabriel, she befriends them instantly. Constance, deeply traumatised by the war, is incapable of showing any love for Gabriel, and Marina quickly becomes deeply attached to him, despite Jacob's warning that this is "ill-advised".
The Children's House asks some big questions. Is it possible to be too kind? By encouraging Gabriel's dependence on her, is the childless Marina serving his needs or her own? Is she being altruistic or selfish? Lots of food for thought in this beautiful novel.
The AFR Magazine is out on Friday November 30 inside The Australian Financial Review.
