A Few Corrections

by Brad Leithauser

Book Overview

According to his obituary, Wesley Sultan died at the age of 63, leaving behind three children, a wife, an ex-wife, a brother, a sister, and a life-long business career. According to his obituary, Wesley Sultan led a quiet, respectable, and unremarkable life. Our narrator, however, is about to discover that nothing could be further from the truth.

Using Sultan's obituary as a road map to the unknown terrain of the man himself, our narrator...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 037572558X
• ISBN13: 9780375725586
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 286 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.0" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

a steady presence on the literary scene

This book is sharp-minded and subtlely witty and knows whereof it speaks. I loved every moment of it.

A Few Corrections; Many, Many Connections

Midway through this exquisite novel the narrator recalls, through an alcoholic mist, that, "the most distant object visible by day--the sun-- lies some eight minutes away at the speed of light. The most distant visible by night--the Great Andromeda Galaxy--lies two million light-years away. In terms of visible boundaries, then, night is some 100 billion times bigger than day." Clearly (or murkily), that leaves much to explore. The primary object of exploration in A Few Corrections, Wesley Sultan, the quintessentially American salesman, has departed for the great darkness beyond life, and the obituary of the man is less than illuminating. The narrator methodically seeks to shed light on this mystery.While the novel is organized around the attempt to make a few corrections to the memory of this rather ordinary Midwestern life, Brad Leithauser makes more than a few fascinating connections, extending to the extraordinary. Some connections work as metaphor. Of Wesley's sister, the babbling Adelle, he writes, "Her monologue is a wandering creek of so gentle a propulsion, you have to take on faith the notion that you'll eventually get out of the woods and into open waterways." The connections work at the larger structural level of the novel, which will have the careful reader returning to the beginning of chapters and earlier parts of the book to confirm the revelations. For fans of Brad Leithauser, there are even connections to his other works of fiction and poetry. I'm anxious to see where this novel will connect to his future work.The novel is filled with humorous vignettes and is beautifully written. (It's better when you read it aloud.) Though Wesley Sultan is elusive, the narrator reaches small epiphanies with those who aid him in his quest. Leithauser treats his characters with great warmth and understanding. He also effectively evokes an earlier and lost time. A Few Corrections is fast-paced: it's a good read. At the same time, its richness makes it a good re-read, too.

A refreshing change of pce; totally original and refreshing

Former Manhattan investment advisor Luke Cross reads the Restoration Oracle obituary for his recently deceased father, Wesley Cross Sultan. He cannot believe that the three paragraphs in the Michigan paper contain a dozen errors. Luke notices that even Wesley's age is wrong and if he, who hardly knew his dad, can see obvious mistakes how many more are not so blatant.Luke begins to edit the obit, making corrections. He also decides to learn more about his father. He visits living relatives and ex-wives to learn the truth about Wesley. Luke quickly concludes that his father was a great womanizer and even greater liar. In other words, the father he does not know more and more looks like a charming rogue who one either adored or loathed.A FEW CORRECTIONS is an intriguing look at the freedoms and controls society places on an individual to conform even one with wide latitude. The story line is amusing and melancholy sometimes at the same time. Some of the relatives are strong characters with three dimension personalities, but key players Luke and Wesley invoke nothing for the audience as they seem flat in comparison. Still, Brad Leithauser has written a different type of tale as this character study focuses on a person through the final statement about their life: the obituary.Harriet Klausner