Word: reinharts
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...REINHART'S WOMEN by Thomas Berger; Delacorte; 295 pages...
...heroes of note in American fiction have succeeded in a variety of styles. Philip Roth's Nathan Zuckerman (Zuckerman Unbound) is famous; Updike's Harry Angstrom (Rabbit Is Rich) shuttles prosperously from Toyota dealership to marriage bed; and Thomas Berger's hefty and tenuous moralist, Carlo Reinhart, now 54, has risen above his customary blundering to become an Ohio Quixote tilting at Cuisinarts. Indeed, the redoubtable lummox actually triumphs over fate, women and his amazing girth...
...eleventh novel-the fourth and best Reinhart volume-the author of Neighbors and Little Big Man propels the huge German American into an early and energetic Gray Pantherhood. This is not the Carlo Reinhart of Crazy in Berlin (1958), Reinhart in Love (1962) and Vital Parts (1970). He has been divorced from the vituperous Genevieve-his wife of 22 years-for a decade. His son Blaine, a mulish, asexual hippie ten years ago, is now a three-piece materialist; and blubbery, myopic Daughter Winona has been transformed into an anorectic fashion model. In the past, the world had always been...
...Reinhart is "housefather" in Winona's luxury apartment, sipping a vermouth cassis-he has forsaken his customary tumblers of bourbon-and garnering a local reputation for the classical cuisine. Hired by high-powered Grace Greenwood to demonstrate gourmet-food preparation in supermarkets, he is shocked to discover that the executive gorgon is Winona's lesbian lover. Blaine's wife has an erotic nervous breakdown in Reinhart's bedroom. Genevieve returns to stage a breakdown of her own. Helen Clayton, his supermarket assistant, bolsters Reinhart's flagging sexuality with motel trysts. A neighbor, Edie Mulhouse...
...Reinhart's views and vulgarities do not make him any less appealing to the opposition. Even the poisonous Genevieve concedes, "Carl, if you had always been the mean son of a bitch you've turned into in your old age, I'd probably have stuck by you." Over a simple cheese omelet, Reinhart concludes autobiographically: "Food is I really kinder than people." In the end, I his moral palate has become as discriminating as his taste-buds: he lets others settle their own hash...