The Tourists: A Novel | 
| Author: Jeff Hobbs
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: EBooks
List Price: $17.99
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $8.00 (44%)
Rating:  13 reviews
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
ASIN: B000PC71NM
Publication Date: April 12, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
"Meet the tourists, former classmates at Yale who, seven years later, must confront the people they've become while forging lives in Manhattan. David, a hedge fund wunderkind who forfeited idealism for wealth, hopes that a more fulfilling life lies ahead in the suburbs. His wife, the beautiful Samona, to whom David returns home nightly with nothing left for her, wonders whether her marriage is stripping away her best years. Ethan, a successful furniture designer with a magnetic sexuality, seeks something darker and more uncertain than the power lunches, needy family, and unsatisfying relationships that comprise his life. Rounding out the group is the story's unnamed narrator, a freelance reporter struggling to stay afloat -- financially, professionally, and emotionally -- who shares complicated histories with each of them. When Ethan and Samona have a chance encounter at a gallery opening, they meet each other's needs. As our narrator traverses the city and gradually reconstructs the events that underlie the present circumstances, his own mysterious role comes into ever sharper focus. Only later, after David commissions Ethan to design some conference rooms at his firm and a secret triangle is formed, does our narrator begin to tie all the pieces together. With The Tourists, Jeff Hobbs delivers a striking and stylish debut about the dark and sometimes destructive aspects of physical attraction and love, marital disillusionment, and the inevitable disappointments life can bring. "
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Incredible first novel August 19, 2007
David J. Daucanski
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Great intertwined summer read with many suprises for the reader. Interesting acknowledgement of self-love throughout the book. It is very thought provoking and left me wondering if the narrator may have been the author or the "villian". Very autobiographical feel to it
A Tremendous Journey July 3, 2007
Christiane M. Sabo (Los Angeles, CA)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The Tourists' is the kind of novel that once you pick up - you just CAN'T put down...it is a page turner from start to finish! Jeff's writing is fearless and authentic in a way that is alarmingly beautiful. The novel is uniquely honest and filled with humor that belies it's dark overtones. Every character in the book is flawed and human - and dangerous in a way that makes them captivating and strangely - magnetic. You will LOVE this book!!!!!!
 A little hyped but a good debut June 15, 2007
G. Peng (New York, NY USA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I picked this book up after reading a profile of the author in the LA Times. The book was described, perhaps unfortunately, as a member of the literary genre best described as "post-Gatsby" generational disillusionment with modern life and the nature of wealth. A lot of books have preceded this one and each one has its own take on a series of common themes, transposed for the times.
The book is rich in local details, which as a New Yorker I both appreciate and find somewhat limiting and distracting, in the way that Jay McInerney used in his books as an attempt to be timely and clever. It ultimately detracts from the story and reduces some of the universality of the story, I think.
Hobbs' shifting perspective, from first-person to third-person omniscient is also technically interesting, if questionable. One might argue that it's a little bit lazy in that you don't have to find more difficult ways to tell the story if you're confined to one narrator. That said, I found the characters to be somewhat archetypal and difficult to read. On the other hand, I find that some people are archetypal, so I guess that's not entirely off-base. Still, I found at times the characters were ciphers.
I sympathized with Hobbs' attempt to bring the story to a climax, while trying to resist the melodramatic instinct/hook endemic to the type (murder, tragedy, etc.). Tough sledding, but I did find his climax a bit underwhelming, and I guess as the outlines of the story became clearer, the ending was essentially unavoidable.
Overall, I found it to be a decent attempt to reconstitute the themes of Gatsby - trying to redeem the past, the power of wealth over ideals, and the ability to withstand turmoil by simply ignoring it, updated for a contemporary time of more fluid sexuality.
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