Ward Just's 'Exiles' is story of lack of ambition
On the surface, Washington is a curious setting for a story that goes like this: A protagonist defined by his lack of ambition, forced to go on something like a journey through his regrets.
This is Washington! Ambitions overfloweth here, and regrets -- while present in spades -- aren't something folks have the time or gumption to dwell on.
No matter. Ward Just makes the juxtaposition work well in "Exiles in the Garden," his 16th novel. The main character, Alec Malone, is something of Just's inverse. A former journalist, Just earned renown, in part, for his coverage of the Vietnam War, a dangerous but also Cadillac assignment of his era.
Alec is an up-and-coming photographer whose life becomes defined by his decision to turn down assignment to southeast Asia. He sees his career, and eventually his marriage, wither.
A passive man in a city seemingly defined by a ceaseless procession of type-A personalities, Alec is himself something of an exile. He grew up in Washington, the son of a powerful senator who would like nothing more than to have had his son follow in his footsteps. But he is oddly out of step with the city's ethos. He is happy to be happy enough.
This passivity is challenged, ironically, only by outsiders to Washington. Alec and his wife, Lucia, attend cocktail parties in the gardens of Georgetown where exiles from other countries share their bemusement and observations of America. Lucia, a Swiss-born woman of Czech ancestry, eventually leaves Alec for one of the salon participants.
Alec's reckoning comes, not as his marriage crumbles, but in his encounters with Andre Duran, Lucia's father. Lucia was told her father was dead, but Alec finds him at a Washington boarding house and discovers a man who is everything he is not. Andre is defined by his actions, a participant in the tumultuous events around World War II in eastern Europe. Alec is fascinated.
Just is a talented writer whose considerable ability to turn a phrase is matched by his power of observation. Alec is drawn as a character who is out of place, but Just crafts a city and a setting where it is easy to understand his existence. If "Exiles" is a novel of regrets, they are for Alec alone.